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ROLLING STONES

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ار‎ VIOLENT
STRANGLERS FEMMES
JACKSON
BROWNE NICO

PREFAB
SPROUT

CARGO COLLECTIVE

THE HOLY FAMILY

THE HOLY FAMILY
ROCKET RECORDINGS LP / CD
Ahaunting, fog-draped voyage of kosmische
polyrhythms and psych folk wonder — a stellar
kaleidoscopic vision from a new band featuring
members of Guapo, The Utopia Strong, Coil, Chrome
Hoof etc.

LUCY GOOCH
RAIN’S BREAK EP
FIRE RECORDS LP / CD
Lucy Gooch's music is a beautiful ethereal fog; like
hearing a subliminal echo of Kate Bush on a fading tape
loop. 'Rain's Break’ follows the much-touted ‘Rushing’
EP. "The moment is short, but Lucy Gooch's music
makes it last forever” NPR

PART CHIMP
DROOL
WRONG SPEED RECORDS LP / CD
With a skewed melodic skill to match their mighty
potency, Part Chimp will demolish your house, but you'll
cheerfully thank them for it afterwards. A joy through
vacuum-tubed catharsis .

MOUNTAIN CALLER
CHRONICLE: PROLOGUE EP
NEW HEAVY SOUNDS 12"
Mountain Caller return with a new EP. The conceptual
prequel to their debut album, showcasing the band's
dynamic mix of heavy, expansive and progressive metal.

STARS AND RABBIT
ON DIFFERENT DAYS
TRAPPED ANIMAL LP
The Indonesian duo - huge in their home country — first
release with UK's Trapped Animal, a trippy indie-folk
wander through the last year. An album full of hope. FFO
Cardigans, Les Paul Mary Ford.

EVANS MCRAE
ONLY SKIN
E&M RECORDS CD
Only Skin is the debut album from Evans McRae, a new
collaboration from seasoned song-writers Tom McRae &
Lowri Evans. This stunning & eclectic suite of emotionally
sophisticated songs shows a new side to both these
much-loved artists.

THE QUIREBOYS GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR

A BIT OF WHAT YOU FANCY & D'S PEE AT STATE'S END
(30TH ANNIVERSARY) CONSTELLATION LP / CD
OFF YER ROCKA LP / CD БҮВЕ returns with a soundtrack for our times: two rivet-

Re-recorded version of this classic album to mark the ing side-lengths of noise-drenched post-rock spittle and
albums 30th Anniversary -. Features new Gypsy Rock n’ grit, two shorter elegiac companion pieces. Deluxe vinyl
Roll versions of ‘I Don't Love You Anymore’ and ‘Mayfair’ is 180gLP + 10" in thermograph gatefold.

plus two additional live tracks

AN AMALGAMATION OF RECORD

IRELAND: DUBLIN - SPINDIZZY / KILKENNY - ROLLER COASTER RECORDS № ERN IR

SHOPS AND ©

SABLE STARR RECORDS

- BENDING SOUND / CAMARTHENSHIRE - TANGLED PARROT / CARDIFF - SPILLERS / NEWPORT - DIVERSE / SWANSEA - DERRICKS / SWANSEA - TANGLED PARROT

LABELS

DUNDEE - ASSAI / EDINBURGH - ASSAI / GLASGOW - LOVE MUSIC / GLASGOW - MONORAIL / WALE
NEST: BARROW-IN-FURNESS - TNT RECORDS / LIVERPOOL - 81 RENSHAW LTD / LIVERPOOL - PROBE / МАМ-

BINGLEY - FIVE RISE RECORDS / HARROGATE - P & C MUSIC / HEADINGLEY - VINYL WHISTLE / HUDDERSFIELD - VINYL ТАР / LEEDS - CRASH / LEEDS - JUMBO RECORDS / NEWCASTLE - J G WINDOWS

КАТІЛЯСЛЕЗЫ ВЭРЫВЛЕТСЯ

JULIAN COPE &
THE TEARDROP EXPLODES
COLD WAR PSYCHEDELIA
HEAD HERITAGE LP
Exhilarating! Dynamic! 1982 music from the Death Throes
of Liverpool's maddest band. Also, 1989 Head-On reflections
in spoken word & breath-taking Post-Punk sound collage.
Clad in appropriately intriguing packaging? U-Betcha!

HOLLIE KENNIFF
THE QUIET DRIFT
WESTERN VINYL LP / CD
An ambient gallery of cloudlike synths and wordless
vocals. Bleep says it's “some of the nicest ambient
composition we've heard in a while” RIYL Grouper,
Julianna Barwick, Malibu, Cocteau Twins

JODI
BLUE HERON
SOOPER RECORDS LP / CD
On their debut LP Blue Heron, songwriter Nick Levine's
soft-spoken “queer country” songs deliver a series of
intimate moments capable of turning your inner world
upside down with a whisper.

BRAINSTORY
RIPE

BIG CROWN RECORDS LP / CD
Produced by Brainstory, mixed by Leon Michels and

recorded during the thick of the Covid lockdown. Ripe
pulls from Jazz, Hip Hop, 70s Funk, 60s Soul, and life in

Southern California in the year 2021.

DEDICATED T0

BRINGING YOU NEW

THE MOUNTAIN GOATS
DARK IN HERE

MERGE RECORDS LP / CD
12 songs for singing in caves, bunkers, foxholes, and
secret spaces beneath the floorboards

CEDRIC BURNSIDE
| BE TRYING
SINGLE LOCK RECORDS LP / CD
The blues is music for all time, past, present, and future
and few artists simultaneously exemplify those multiple
temporal moments of the genre like North Mississippi's
Cedric Burnside.

BACAO RHYTHM & STEEL BAND

EXPANSIONS
BIG CROWN RECORDS LP / CD
On their 3rd album, aptly titled Expansions, BRSB are
back. Covering songs that span genres & range from
mega hits to album cuts, they make them their own with

their unique approach to the traditional steel pans of

Trinidad & Tobago.

WHITE FLOWERS
DAY BY DAY

TOUGH LOVE LP / CD
Day By Day is the dark-hued dreampop debut from
Preston duo, White Flowers, recorded in an abandoned
textile mill and produced with Doves' Gez Williams.

MUSIC

ABERYSTWYTH - ANDY'S RECORDS / BANGOR

CHESTER - PICCADILLY RECORDS / PRESTON - ACTION RECORDS H-EA

/ NEWCASTLE - BEATDOWN / NEWCASTLE - BEYOND VINYL / NEWCASTLE - REFLEX / SCARBOROUGH - RECORD REVIVALS / SHEFFIELD - BEAR TREE / SHEFFIELD - RECORD COLLECTOR / SHEFFIELD - SPINNING DISCS / STOCKTON ON TEES - SOUND IT OUT / WAKEFIELD - WAH WAH
RECORDS MIDLANDS; BEDFORD - SLIDE RECORDS / CAMBRIDGE - LOST IN VINYL / CAMBRIDGE - RELEVANT / COVENTRY - JUST DROPPED IN / DERBY - REVEAL RECORDS / LEAMINGTON SPA - HEAD / LEAMINGTON SPA - SEISMIC RECORDS / LEIGHTON BUZZARD - BLACK CIRCLE RE-
CORDS / LETCHWORTH - DAVID'S MUSIC / LOUTH - OFF THE BEATEN TRACK / NOTTINGHAM - ROUGH TRADE / OXFORD - TRUCK STORE / STOKE ON TRENT - MUSIC МАМА / STOKE ON TRENT - STRAND RECORDS / WITNEY - RAPTURE SOUTH: BEXHILL ON SEA - MUSIC'S NOT DEAD /
BLANDFORD FORUM - REVOLUTION ROCKS / BOURNEMOUTH - AVID RECORDS / BOURNEMOUTH - VINILO / BRIGHTON - RESIDENT / BURY ST.EDMUNDS - VINYL HUNTER / GODALMING - RECORD CORNER/ HASTINGS - CLOTH AND WAX / LEIGH-ON-SEA - FIVES / LONDON - BANQUET
GRAVITY / LONDON - CASBAH / LONDON - FLASHBACK / LONDON - ROUGH TRADE EAST / LONDON - ROUGH TRADE TALBOT RD / LONDON - SISTER RAY / LUTON - VINYL REVELATIONS / ROMSEY - HUNDRED / SOUTHSEA - PIE & VINYL / SOUTHEND ON SEA - SOUTH RECORDS / ST AL-

BANS - EMPIRE RECORDS / WATFORD - LP CAFE / WIMBORNE - SQUARE RECORDS / WHITSTABLE - GATEFIELD SOUNDS / WINCHESTER - ELEPHANT RECORDS

RAVES FROM THE GRAVE / MARLBOROUGH - SOUND KNOWLEDGE / TOTNES - DRIFT |

17 HEATHMAN'S ROAD, LONDON SWS 4T) - CARGORECORDS.CO.UK -

BRISTOL - RADIO ON / BRISTOL - ROUGH TRADE / CHELTENHAM - BADLANDS / FALMOUTH - JAM / FROME
BLEEP.COM / BOOMKAT.COM / JUNORECORDS / MARBLE VINYL RECORDS / NORMANRECORDS.COM / PEBBLERECORDS.CO.UK / RECORDSTORE.CO.UK

INFO@CARGORECORDS.CO.UK

CONTENTS

LONDON * MEMPHIS * LEICESTER

AUGUST 2021 Issue 333

FEATURES
26 BILLY F GIBBONS

Texan blues surrealist, stylist and
survivor: ZZ Top's mainman runs ona
full tank of brio. But does he sleep with
his beard under or over the covers?

32 CROWDED
HOUSE the Antipodes’

second-biggest pop export are back,
after self-doubt, sackings anda
suicide. Fleetwood Maca role
model? Surprisingly, yes.

38 YOLA Deep soul stirrings
from the Brit belter, now with
added attitude (and Dan Auerbach).
“Nashville's been a magic place for
me,” she tells Bill DeMain.

42 ROGER CHAPMAN

Family's force majeure chose rock
over jail, but at 79 he’s no closer to

“It’s a team, чў
isn’t it: Mick 4 compromising: “I just get on stage

and sing things like."

Jagger and Keith | 48 VIOLENT FEMMES
Richards? It was k оч сірге

оп еасһ other. MOJO talks to all the

ипһеага оғ tO members of a band ahead ofits time.

let someone j 52 NICO Have the creative gifts of

+ 99 } the Velvet Underground siren been
else ІП. belittled? A focus on her early solo
albums and seismic encounter with
Jim Morrison suggests so.

58 THEROLLING
STONES Fifty years old

and still swaggering, Sticky Fingers
is unzipped by our panel of experts.
Plus: the final destination of

The Rolling Stones Mobile.

COVER STORY
66 AMY WINEHOUSE

Ten years since her tragic death, the
depth and breadth of the Southgate
soul diva’s dazzling talents are

27, still being fathomed. Friends

and colleagues celebrate a singer
ж- and songwriter sans pareil.

David Montgomery

MOJO 3

Bring it all back:
Jakob Dylan and
the return of

The Wallflowers,
Albums, p84.

MOJO

ALL BACK TO MY PLACE

Joan Armatrading, Danny Elfman and Faye
Webster get busy on the ones and twos.

REAL GONE Lloyd Price, Anita Lane,

Pervis Staples, Roger Hawkins and many
others, so sorry you had to go.

ASK MOJO Which sure-fire superhits

fizzled out when first released?

HELLO GOODBYE Yes, it's her.

Wendy Smith recalls time in the magical
shadow world of Prefab Sprout.

SUMMER OF SOUL А massive

festival of soul in Harlem in summer 69? How
could we not know? The Roots' Questlove's
directorial movie debut unearths the story,
starring Stevie, Sly, Nina Simone and others.

THE STRANGLERS Last year,
we lost Stranglers keyboardist Dave Greenfield
to Covid. Bassist JJ Burnel knew they had to
finish the LP they'd started with him. "We've
still got a lot to prove to ourselves," he reflects.

JACKSON BROWNE with

new LP Downhill From Everywhere, the veteran
singer-songwriter gets in Confidential mood
/ and reflects on feuds, excess and politics,
Caron tha bis Meet admitting, “I basically know nothing."

Ellen Mclilwaine, Cult / Р | ALICE COLTRANE Drew

ር 1 archival release finds the spiritual jazz icon in
hymnal voice and organ form. Her son Ravi,
who oversaw the record, says: "When | heard
[the tapes], | was blown away."

SQU ID Rising! The un-linear Brighton
post-punks talk Krautrock, JG Ballard and
painful in-band democracy. Across the page,
the Lahore/Boston minimalism of Arooj Aftab.

MOJO FILTER
78 NEW ALBUMS Durand Jones,

David Crosby, Chrissie Hynde and much more!

92 REISSUES ia Nyro, Mudhoney,

Annette Peacock, The White Stripes and more.

103 SCREEN сат Cooke to Suge Knight, an

Amazing Snakehead to sisters with transistors.

All signs point to
Durand Jones & 104 BOOKS wii Sergeant's Bunnyman, plus

The Indications, ; n |
Lead Album p78. The Orb, Nico, the ’80s and another Dylan tome!

THIS МТН'5 CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE

Dr Jennifer ges Andy Fyfe Jim Herrington
Otter Bickerdike / The first time Kiwi native Fyfe Jim has photographed the greats,
Theauthor of Why Vinyl Matters, interviewed Crowded House was near-misses and never-weres of
Jennifer's Rock N Roll Confidential ў for NME іп 1994, just three weeks | themusic/celebrity world for
podcast starts in August, with Co after Paul Hester had left the decades, the evidence soon to

be seen in a second volume of
his work. The Climbers (2017)
was the first. Jim photos Yola

for M0JO Presents, p38.
Instagram: @jimherrington.
Website: www.jimherrington.com

group. After moving to the UK in
1988, Andy worked on the staff
at NME, Select and then Q, and
has contributed to М0/0 since
2005. In this issue, he reconnects
4 with Neil Finn & Co from p32.

guests including Johnny Marr,
Blake Schwarzenbach and Will
Sergeant. From California, she
now lives in London with husband
James and dog Alfie. Her new book
about Nico is extracted from p52.

Panik

4 MOJO

* SPECIAL EXCLUSIVE ІР & CD BUNDLES

THE RESURGENCE OF
MATT SWEENEY . -
8 BONNIE ‘PRINCE’ BILLY -

: SUPERWOLVES...

AVAILABLE FROM DOMINOMUSIC.COM "%

BE AWARE OF SUPERWOLVES `

Soul Feud

The Swampers, featuring Roger
Hawkins, might have been the most

famous Muscle Shoals backing band.

But in 1969, after a spat with boss
Rick Hall, they left Fame to set up
their own Muscle Shoals Sound
Studio. In their place, Hall recruited
a new crew, later known as The
Fame Gang, who also recorded a
couple of singles. Soul Feud, from
1969, makes a tremendously funky,
strutting overture to our comp.

Written by Albert Lowe, Jesse Boyce. Screen
Gems-EMI

Cover Me

A session guitar regular in Muscle
Shoals, Eddie Hinton was also a
terrific songwriter - very much a
contemporary of Dan Penn - anda
pretty handy vocalist, too: His most

Bed, but we've gone for Hinton's
demo of this plaintive Southern
soul classic, given the full-on
treatment by Percy Sledge in 1968
and then Jackie Moore in 1971.

famous song might be Breakfast Iri

Written by Greene, Hinton. Published by Warner
Chappell Music Ltd መዜ 2000 Eddie Hinton. From
` Dear Y'all (Zane Records) www.zanerecords.com
applemusic.com

(4), Alamy, Ace Records, Alysse Gafkjen, Danny Clinch, Jim Herrington

Getty

6 MOJO

I Can See Es

A gospel institution for over 80 years,
the Blind Boys originally formed in
Talladega, three hours from Muscle
Shoals, in 1939. This righteous track,
made there in 2017, features founder
member Clarence Fountain.

Written by Joey Williams, Ray Ladson, Jimmy
Sloan. Published by BBOA Publishing (BMI).
Administered by BMG / DoraSues Publishing (BMI)
/ Modern Roots Music and Publishing (BMI). From
Almost Home (Single Lock Records); www.
singlelock.com Recorded at FAME Studios, Muscle
Shoals, Alabama USA. Produced by Steve Berlin

I'm Qualified

Another one of Fame's early intake
alongside Arthur Alexander, Jimmy
Hughes was a local gospel singer
and cousin of Percy Sledge, who
recorded Rick Hall and Quin Ivy's
I'm Qualified in 1962. When the
single flopped. Hughes went back

` to work in a rubber factory, but his

persistence would eventually pay
off a couple of years later when he
took a new song of his, Steal Away,
to Hall. Theresulting single made it
as high'as 17 in the US charts.

Written by Quin Ivy, Rick Hall. Screen Gems — EMI

OTIS REDDING, WILSON PICKETT

Save Me

Few artists who passed through
Fame had more of an impact than
Wilson Pickett, who recorded
numerous sessions at the studio for
Atlantic in the '60s. This rave-up,
penned by Fame regulars George
Jackson and Dan Greer, opened
1968's Hey Jude; an LP also notable

for introducing the guitar skills of
Duane Allman.

Written by Dan Greer, George Jackson. Published
by Fame, BMI ©1969 WEA International Inc.
USAT20103617 Licensed courtesy of Warner Music
UK Ltd.

Where The Devil Don’t Stay

Although DBTs have been torch-
bearers for Muscle Shoals culture for
over two decades, thanks to the local
roots of core members Patterson
Hood and Mike Cooley, their long
recording career has rarely strayed
back to the area. But 2004’s mighty
fifth album The Dirty South, was
recorded at Fame and opened with
this searing, Cooley-fronted rocker.

Written by Cooley / Cooley. Published by Wayward
Johnson's Music (BMI). ©&©2004 New West
Records. From The Dirty South (New West
Records). www.newwestrecords.com

GREGG ALLMAN, BETTYE LAVETTE
JASON ISBELL & MORE

4
I Still Want To Be Your
Baby (Take Me Like І Am)

LaVette first turned up at Fame in
1972, recording an album - Child Of
Тһе Seventies - bafflingly shelved
until 2015. By then, she'd made a
return visit in 2007 and worked with
second generation Shoals rockers
the Drive-By Truckers on the fine
Scene Of The Crime. It's written by
another key player, guitarist Eddie
Hinton, more of whom later.

Written by Edward C Hinton. ®&©2007 Anti, Inc.
Published by Eddie Hinton Music (BMI). From The
Scene of The Crime.

Walk Away With Me

Some soul legends took their time
making it to Muscle Shoals, a case in
point being Johnnie Taylor. His
career began in the 19505, singing
gospel alongside Al Green, and by
the late '60s was a cornerstone of
the Stax roster. His Muscle Shoals
era began in the '80s and peaked
with 1996's Good Love! - where this
Dark End Of The Street-like quiet
storm, featuring the Swampers,
comes from.

Written by George Jackson. Peer Music III, Malaco
Music

USCLE SHOALS, ALABAMA, FIRST APPEARED ON THE
musical map 99 years ago, with local eminence W.C. Handy
recording his Muscle Shoals Blues in tribute. But its critical
role really began in the late '50s, when Rick Hall and his

associates launched their Fame Studios in the area. By 1961, they had OTIS
their first hit record - Arthur Alexander's You Better Move On - and, REDDING
soon, the area had become a crucible of soul and southern rock, and ризом
of elite recording practices at both Fame and the Muscle Shoals GREGG
Sound Studio just down the road. ALLMAN

It was at the latter that The Rolling Stones recorded You Gotta BETTYE
Move, Brown Sugar and Wild Horses, and this month's feature on LAVETTE
Sticky Fingers provided the initial impetus for us to compile this MOJO ro

CD of Muscle Shoals nuggets. Sadly, however, You Gotta Move! has
also turned out to be a memorial to one of the Muscle Shoals greats,
drummer Roger Hawkins, who passed away on May 20. Rhythm pivot
of The Swampers, the studio's imperturbably groovy house band,
Hawkins played on multitudes of great records that crystallised the
local sound, not least Wilson Pickett's Save Me. This compilation,
encompassing 60 years of extraordinary Muscle Shoals music, is

& MORE

dedicated to his memory.

7 8
My Only True Friend Heart On A String You Left The Water .
A by-product of Duane Allman'slink Another George Jackson co-write, Running You Better Move On

with Fame is that he and brother
Gregg's pre-Allmans band, Hour
Glass, recorded there in 1968. Nearly
50 years later, Gregg was back for
the sessions that became his last LP,
2017's Southern Blood. Mostly covers,
but including this poignant new
burner: “1 hope you're haunted by the
music of my soul, when I’m gone.”

best known from the version on
Candi Staton's 1970 Fame debut, I’m
Just A Prisoner. А more recent Fame
graduate, Isbell grew up locally and
met Swampers bass David Hood in
his teens. Part of Drive-By Truckers
with Hood's son Patterson, Isbell
went solo in 2007: this crunchy take
comes from 2011's Here We Rest.

Written by Gregg Allman. Published by KOBALT
MUSIC PUB AMERICA I 080 D DEM MUSIC ®&©2017
Rounder Records. From Southern Blood (Rounder
Records) www.rounder.com

13
Take Me Just As | Am

You might know Dan Penn/Spooner
Oldham's gem from Solomon Burke.
But this 1969 version by the lesser-

Written by George Jackson, Mickey Buckins.
Published by 50.00% EMI Music Publishing
50.0096 ®&©2019 Southeastern. From Here We
Rest (Southeastern)

Love Is A Gamble

Like his Malaco labelmate Johnnie
Taylor, Inverness, Mississippi's
James Milton Campbell Jr was an

It's one hell of a demo. Visiting Fame
in ‘66, Redding was asked by Rick Hall
torun through this Dan Penn tune in
preparation for Wilson Pickett's
version that figured on 1967's The
Wicked Pickett. Otis's take briefly
surfaced as a bootleg 7-inch in the
mid '70s, before official release in '87.

Written by Wallace Daniel Pennington, Roe
Erister Hall, Oscar Eugene Franck. Published by
Screen Gems-EMI Music Publishing (BMI) / Irving
Music, Inc, BMI ©1968 WEA International Inc.
USAT20000310 Licensed courtesy of Warner
Music UK Ltd.

Muscle Shoals Malmo
Express

Finally, spotlight on a peerless house
band: (above, from left) Jimmy

Where it all began. Florence,
Alabama local Arthur Alexander
had one single under his belt when
he entered the original Florence
home of Fame in 1961 and cut his
own country-soul beauty with Rick
Hall. Fame's first hit (Number 24 in
the US), it helped finance Hall's
move to his more famous Muscle
Shoals facility on Avalon Avenue.
Note, too, a Rolling Stones cover on
their 1964 self-titled EP.

Written by Arthur Alexander. Screen Gems-EMI

et ም mm
*

known Govan is delivered with R&B vet who found his way to Johnson (guitar), Roger Hawkins 4
much more zip than Burke. Govan, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio laterin ^ (drums) David Hood (bass), Barry N
sometimes called Little Otis, was life. Discovered by Ike Turner, Beckett (keys). From '705 sessions for $
discovered by George Jackson and signed to Sun and Stax, covered by an M.G.'s-style Swampers album !
recorded several singles for Fame in The Spencer Davis Group, an only released in 2018, hear what

the late '60s and early '70s, without electric blues guitarist and vocalist Lynyrd Skynyrd meant when they 1
ever getting a break. A major of considerable swagger, Love Is A sang: "Now Muscle Shoals has got 3
neglected talent, it transpires, who Gamble can be found on 1994's I'm The Swampers/And they've been ፤

worked Memphis' Beale Street for
the last 25 years of his life.

A Gambler. Campbell died in 2005,
just short of his 71st birthday.

Written by Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham. Screen
Gems-EMI

Written by Milton Campbell. Peer Music IIl,
Malaco music, Trice Pub

known to pick a song or two/Lord,
they get me off so much/They pick
me up when I'm feeling blue..."

Written by Roger Hawkins, Jimmy Johnson

EARL ВСИ
THE EARL SCRUGGS S REVUE

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I Saw Тһе Light With Some Help... etc
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Strike Anywhere / Bold And New

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People / The Impossible Dream /
Love Theme From “Romeo And Juliet”
/ Give Me Your Love For Christmas

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|
The Imperial Decade.

Buy online at greatmagazines.co.uk/mojo-specials

THE WORKS

BGO Records, 7 St Andrews Street North, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk IP33 1TZ : Distributed in the UK by Proper Music

AVAILABLE NOW!

QUEEN

Е at
үу, "
| /
4
|

out July 29, 2021

What music are you currently
grooving to?

I'm busy rehearsing so I'm listening to
my own stuff. If I’m sitting about
relaxing with friends l'Il play some-
thing classical - Beethoven, Purcell,
Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, you name
‘em, I'm gonna like ‘em.

What, if push comes to shove, is
your all-time favourite album?

At the moment I'm really enjoying
Kanye West's Jesus Is King, in his
religious phase. It's a great album, but
| wouldn't say any album was my
favourite of all time.

Jacob Boll,

Danny Elfman

What music are you currently
grooving to?

Wow! What am | grooving to? That's
50000 hard! I'm listening to a lot of
heavy stuff. Tool's Fear Inoculum is
high up on my list. For some reason
l've returned to a lot of Portishead
and Massive Attack from the past.
But as I’m in the middle of writing a
cello concerto I’m also listening to a
lot of Shostakovich and Bartók
classical works and then mix in some
Moorish Music From Mauritania by
Khalifa Ould Eide & Dimi Mint
Abba and Sleepwalking Through The
Mekong by Dengue Fever and that

late coming to things.

Joan Armatrading

Which musician, other than your-
self, have you ever wanted to be?
| don't want to be anyone but Joan,
thank you. | don't wanna be a lion,

a tiger, a tree, I’m very happy being

who | am.

What do you sing in the shower?

I don't. | don't sing around the house,
unless I'm writing, seriously.

What is your favourite Saturday
night record?

You're asking the wrong person
because | probably wouldn't play
music on a Saturday! 111 be watching
the television, some comedy
programme like Taskmaster or You've
Been Framed. You see, from young,
when | started writing, writing was it.
Writing the words, trying to get the
emotion and expression, and feeling,
I spent a lot of time doing that.

And your Sunday morning record?
Maybe that Kanye record.

Consequences is out now on BMG.

1,4

DELIG

TLIC с

might be it for this week. It’s a mish-
mosh and next week... who knows?
A different brew.

What, if push comes to shove, is
your all-time favourite album?
If push came to shove I'd have to
choose David Bowie's Scary
Monsters (And Super Creeps).

What was the first record you ever
bought? And where did you buy it?
I'm not 100 per cent sure but it
might have been Revolver from The
Beatles. If that includes 7-inch sin-
gles, I'd have to go way back to The
Four Tops’ Reach Out I'll Be There.

| haven't the foggiest idea what
record store I'd have gone to when

| was a kid. just hope | paid for it!

Which musician, other than your-
self, have you ever wanted to be?
Oh God, that's the longest list ever.
Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev,
Dmitri Shostakovich, Duke
Ellington, Cab Calloway, Philip
Glass, Miles Davis... shall | go on?
John Lennon, John Coltrane,
David Byrne, David Bowie, Jimi
Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Kurt Weill,
Kurt Cobain, Stéphane Grappelli,
Steve Reich... this list can go on
forever, so 111 stop here.

What do you sing in the shower?
Any Freddie Mercury song | can
conjure up.

What is your favourite Saturday
night record?

Radiohead's The King Of Limbs.

And your Sunday morning record?
Miles Davis's Round About Midnight.

Big Mess is released this month on Anti-/
Epitaph.

Faye Webster

What music are you currently
grooving to?

I'm listening to Mei Ehara a lot right
now, like a lot a lot. I love her music,
the instrumentation and her
melodies are so fun to me and I see
myself in her sometimes. She's defi-
nitely on repeat most of the time.

What, if push comes to shove, is
your all-time favourite album?
Hannah Cohen, Welcome Home, |
have listened to this album so much
that | get sensory nostalgia from it.
Certain songs make me smell certain
things from where | was or what

| was doing at the first time when

| was listening to it.

What was the first record you
ever bought? And where did
you buy it?

Asleep At The Wheel, 70. All|
remember is buying it with my
family somewhere, maybe a spring
break or something, when | was a
kid. They were always one of my
parents’ favourite bands so | guess
it just got passed on to me.

Which musician, other than your-
self, have you ever wanted to be?

Patti Smith probably. Her mind is so

P Еу |

СЕ

ING..

beautiful and | like how she just
sits and reads or writes at random
places like she isn't Patti Smith or
something. That's what I’m trying
to be like.

What do you sing in the shower?
My boyfriend's songs because it's
the only time that | can do it without
him hearing...

What is your favourite Saturday
night record?

Soft Sounds From Another Planet by
Japanese Breakfast. It's definitely
a go-to for me and always puts me
in a good mood.

And your Sunday morning record?
Blake Mills, Mutable Set. There's not
a song on this record that's getting
skipped. It's my favourite album to
listen to, like to really listen to... it's
so comforting and | find myself
focusing on something different
about the song every listen.

1Кпом I'm Funny haha is released this
month on Secretly Canadian.

MOJO 9

MOJO

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contact
Danny Eccleston

Thanks for their help with
this issue:
Keith Cameron, lan Whent.

Among this month's
contributors:

Martin Aston, John Aizlewood,
Mark Blake, Mike Barnes,
Glyn Brown, John Bungey,
David Buckley, Keith Cameron,
Stevie Chick, Andrew Collins,
Andy Cowan, Bill DeMain,
Tom Doyle, Daryl Easlea, Alison
Fensterstock, David Fricke, Andy
Fyfe, Pat Gilbert, David Hutcheon,
Chris Ingham, Jim Irvin, Colin
Irwin, David Katz, Dorian Lynskey,
Andrew Male, James McNair, Andy
Morris, Lucy O'Brien, Jennifer
Otter Bickerdike, Andrew Perry,
Jon Savage, Victoria Segal, David
Sheppard, Michael Simmons,
Sylvie Simmons, Ben Thompson,
Kieron Tyler, Charles Waring, Lois
Wilson, Stephen Worthy..

Among this month's
photographers:
Cover: Alex Lake
Alec Byrne, David Carol,
Dean Chalkley, Henry Diltz,
Lynn Goldsmith, Jim Herrington,
Roger Kisby, Bud Lee,
Gered Mankowitz, Wendy
McDougall, David Montgomery,
Charles Moriarty, Paul Natkin,
Michael Putland, Jennifer Rocholl,
Christian Rose, Graham Trott,
Peter Webb, Guy Webster

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10 MOJO

Theories,
rants, etc.

MOJO welcomes correspondence for publication.
E-mail to: mojoreaders@bauermedia.co.uk

ON APRIL 7, FRED DELLAR SUBMITTED

his crossword for MOJO, as he had done every month for over 20 years. It was,
as ever, a small masterpiece of cunning, playfulness and immense musical
wisdom: a place where Earl Scruggs and Earl Sweatshirt could share a clue,
where Bob Lind, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Ramsey Lewis and Anthrax all had a part
to play, and Dusty Springfield was always welcome.

It has proved, though, to be Fred’s final crossword. Sadly, this most trusted
and beloved of MOJO stalwarts passed away on May 15, a fortnight before his
90th birthday. As so many of you will know, Fred has been a critical part of
MOJO for most of our existence: curator of Time Machine, infallible fount of
knowledge on the Ask Fred page, a thoughtful and generous journalist who
always carried his learning lightly. Before MOJO, Fred was an equally invaluable
presence in many other fine music mags, and we’ve detailed his full extraordi-
nary career on page 113, where his crossword would normally reside. I first
encountered him in the early 905 at NME, pottering discreetly among the photo
files, researching his Fred Fact column. Music scholars can sometimes be intim-
idating figures, but Fred was notable for his kindness and insight as well as his
expertise. Early in my career, he intuited the music I might like and brought me
a tape of David Ackles’ first album. He was, of course, uncannily correct.

We'll miss Fred hugely, and we're sure you all will, too. But we also hope we've
learned from him how to share our enthusiasms, how to pack every MOJO
full of information about an eclectic world of music, articulated with an easy
warmth that’s always inclusive, and never elitist. To honour Fred, we can aspire
to nothing greater.

JA —

JOHN MULVEY, EDITOR

of tape echo to create other-worldly soundscapes.

A few weeks later, me, Frank, and one of the
other bands that evening squeezed into my mum’s
Ford Fiesta to spend a Saturday afternoon in Kevin’s

Are you sure you’re playing
with the right side?

While the Ivy Rooms might have been the first gig

My Bloody Valentine played with their name on the
bill [as captioned in MOJO 331], it wasn’t their first
gig. A mate of mine, Frank — I think, at the time,
fancying himself the next Paul McGuinness — started
a series of concerts in the basement of the North
Star Hotel in Dublin earlier that year. The first
night, the first band on was МВУ. It might have been
nerves, but they didn't establish much eye contact
with the largely punk audience, so my mate took

a little bit of piss by placing the telephone directory
at the toe of singer David Conway's forward
winklepicker: shoegazing before there was shoegaze.
As the nerd playing audio engineer for the evening,

I remember being fascinated by Kevin Shields’ use

parents' converted garage, recording a demo on his
4-track cassette recorder. Prompted by Kevin, as I
remember it, Frank even ended up adding a layer of
mono-synth lines for a bit more texture in the mix.
This remains my claim-to-fame anecdote, trotted
out when mixing with rock cognoscenti. Heady days.

Dave Hegarty, Tübingen, Germany

Are you going to tell
us who you work for?

As a full-on MOJO reader since Issue 1, I now
habitually expect your features to uncover deep back
stories, and the McCartney/Ram article [MOJO 331]

did not disappoint. Above all, I was impressed to

see that Linda got at least a bit of a nod for urging

a depressed Paul to record the Ram album. I expect
there's even more to that story, and there have got
be scores of similar stories about the heroic, devoted
women behind the great men of music (hello Yoko!).
Dear departed Fred Dellar (sending a tearful RIP
from a friend and fan) would have jumped on such

a theme.

Morgan Fisher, Mott The Hoople

You can't put a
price on integrity
I have just read the article on the Redskins [MOJO
332], not before time as they have never gained
the praise they're due, and surely they're more
relevant than ever. I was lucky to have seen them a
few times, though the only gigs I remember are York
Racecourse and supporting The Clash on the Out
Of Control tour in Brixton. They definitely sang like
The Supremes! In 2019, I had Billy Bragg sign one
of his books and asked him to write “stop, strike,
unionise" as the dedication. I’m a nurse, it felt
appropriate. Billy said, *The Redskins, great band,
bloody difficult to tour with."

Dave Portch, Exeter

The first thing you should
know about us is that we
have people everywhere

Like many other subscribers I’ve been making do
with curating my record collection during lockdown
whilst waiting for the return of live music. Then in
MOJO 332’s letters I saw a tribute to Poco’s Rusty
Young, in which Clive Goodyer recalled going to
Birmingham Hippodrome with his older brother in
1975 to see America and Poco, which coincidentally
was my first ever gig. Not having older siblings, and
having friends only into the usual Sab/Zep/ELP/
Yes, that Tuesday night after school I = the bus
into town on my own and thus started a live musical
odyssey, although I had to wait another few months
until seeing a past-their-best Flying Burrito Brothers
at the Town Hall.

Sleater-Kinney, The Murder Capital and
Elvis Costello were the last three gigs I went to,
and perhaps together with Poco they are a good
representation of the wide range of artists that
MOJO does a great job of keeping us all in touch
with. I've got a couple of dozen rearranged gigs
pencilled in for the autumn so let's hope that they
can finally go ahead. See you at the rock show.

Ashley Jones, North Wales

You just cost me quite
a bit of money, darling

Retirement and Covid have given me time to play
and purchase more records. MOJO 329 introduced
me to Lonnie Holley and I was mesmerised with his

story. Thanks to that, Гуе added his Just Before Music
and National Freedom LPs to my collection. Thank
you, MOJO for bringing to light so many artists who
deserve wider recognition.

Michael Carson, Tucson Arizona

His MI6 file says he's

difficult to control
Your Time Machine piece [MOJO 331] referred to

"thrusting young record executive" Richard Branson
and was a reminder that Branson's success with
Mike Oldfield's opus was, effectively, the launch
pad of his Virgin empire and billionaire status.
In the 1990s, while working at BBC Radio Derby,
I interviewed Derby-born Kevin Coyne and we
eventually touched on his early years at Virgin. Kevin
told me that shortly after being. signed by Virgin, he
was asked to meet Branson on his house-boat. He
told Kevin that he had concerns about the Tubular
Bells recordings going on at Oxford Manor. *He was
worried about the fact that it was an all-instrumental
album,” recalled Kevin. “He said ‘I don't think this
is going to work', and so he asked me to go up to
the Manor to see if I could put some lyrics to it. So
I trooped off to Oxford to meet this Oldfield fellow
and to listen to his album. I hated it. I walked away
thinking, I want nothing to do with this. Good job,
really. Look how Tübular Bells turned out." Kevin
always struck me as a guy of utter sincerity. Maybe
Mike Oldfield recalls this episode?

Ashley Franklin, Milford, Derbyshire

Regimes change once

a week around here
Loved your Paul Weller edition [MOJO 331]. Made

me regret even more selling my original Jam LPs
when CDs arrived, so it got me thinking: Weller

has been amazingly consistent over many years. I
went back to Stanley Road and wonde red where it
featured in MOJO's Albums of 1995... I checked.
It didn't. How about a self-reflective feature on the
best albums that never made the MOJO Top 50 over
the years? Could dig out some real gems. Thanks, as
ever, for being amazing.

Roger Bratchell

You only have one
shot. Make it count.

I was very pleased to see Joni on the cover of MOJO
332 — and enjoyed your excellent 50th Anniversary
celebration of Blue, "which is surely one of the most
truly beautiful albums ever recorded. 1971 does
appear to be a good vintage, with other classics such
as Who's Next, Surf 5 Up, Led Zeppelin IV and Hunky
Dory. And whilst we're getting all nostalgic, the

letter quotes this month appear to be from Almost
Famous... and there's a great soundtrack to the early

"70s! Keep up the great work.
Stephen Gregory, Altrincham

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MOJO 11

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The Fifth Dimension ። Abbey Lincoln «

The Edwin Hawkins Singers * George Kirby *

Olatunji * Max Roach / June 29

Mahalia Jackson • The Staple Singers *
Herman Stevens & The Voices of Faith •
Reverend Jesse Jackson & the Operation

Breodbosket Band / July 13

Stevie Wonder * Dovid Ruffin » Chuck Jackson *

Gladys Knight & the Pips *
Lou Parks Dancers / July 20
Mongo Santamaria « Ray Barretto *

Cal Tjader * Herbie Mann * Harlem Festival

Calypso Band / July 27

Nina Simone = B. B. King * Hugh Mosakela *

Harlem Festival Jazz Band / Aug. v

Miss Harlem Pageant = Lo Rocque Bey & Co. *

Listen My Brothers & Co. / Aug. 24

5529

1969

SUNDAYS 3 PM. МТ. MORRIS PARK +

HEN PRODUCERS Robert

Fyvolent and David Dinerstein

approached Ahmir ‘Questlove’
Thompson in 2017 to discuss the 1969
Harlem Cultural Festival, he found it hard
to believe that he had never heard of an

ADMISSION FREE event which starred Stevie Wonder, Nina

Simone, Gladys Knight and Sly And The
Family Stone, among others.

B thought they were try ing to pull a fast one on
те, есаб the Roots druminer, Tonight Show
bandleader and walking enc yclopaedia of music.

“I was like, "There's no way you're telling me that
300,000 people v witnessed this and not one person
knows this stor y"

Having only ‘directed one music video, he then
deliber rated уу hether he could take on the responsibility
of turning those 40 reels of forgotten black history
into a movie.

“I have what it takes to sit in the audience and tell
my date, Ah, they got that wrong. But do I have what
it takes to tell the story? ?" he says. "You've got one
chance to really get itr ight. I made the дс ision Fo
create the film "that I would actually want to see." That
film is Summer Of Soul (...Or, W hen The Revolution
Could Not Be Televised), which has already won the
Grand Jury prize and Audience
award at Sundance.

The festival took place in Mount
Morris Park over six weekends in the
summer of Woodstock and Apollo

1. The brainchild of a formidable
ко named Tony Lawrence
(*sort of like the black Bill Graham,"
says Questlove), it had the bac king of
New York's liberal mayor John
Lindsay, who thought it would
soothe race relations the year after
Martin Luther King’s murder.

Rage In Harlem

Producer Hal Tulchin filmed the first five weekends
(in week six the film crew was filming the pilot of
Sesame Street) and pitched it to broadcasters as “Black
Woodstock", but nobody would bite. Just before the
launch of Soul Train and the blaxploitation boom,
blackness was barely an idea, let alone a market.
Woodstock, Monterey and Wattstax live on through
film but Harlem went unseen and манин ጫቸ ለ

*Mainstream dollars meant white dollars,"

Questlove says. “Soul Train was the paradigm shift
for black entertainment but this film should have
been first out of the gate."

Questlove ran the footage on a constant loop for
months, looking for *eoosebump moments", but what
makes Summer Of Soul extraordinary is the use of
archive clips and talking heads to connect the music to
the times: the Black Panthers, the heroin epidemic,
Afrocentrism, the apartheid struggle, and even the
moon landing, which coincided with Wonder's set and
left festiv. algoer s refreshingly unimpr

“It was such a pivotal year," Questlove says. “Black

sed.

people were embracing the parts of ourse lves that we
were formerly ashamed of. The historian in me wanted
to present this in the proper context. The circumstances
that caused this concert to happen in the first place are
happening to us in real time right now. Even if you

”

don’t relate to the music, you're > relating to the struggle.
It's hard to imagine any viewer not relating to

Wonder's giddy drum solo, Simone's hair-r raising call

for кене кан or Mahalia Jackson's and Mavis Staples'
staggering gospel tribute to Dr King.
Questlove says that he came to love
camera number four, which captured
scenes of delight and self-expression
in the crowd that were every bit as
joyful as what was happening on
stage. Thanks to Summer Of Soul,
they too are finally part of the
historical record.

Ф
9

chlig

Sear

Dorian Lynskey
Summer Of Soul (...Or, When The
Revolution Could Not Be Televised) is

released in theatres and on Hulu on July 2. $

=
5
<

Questlove (above)
and Summer Of Soul
goosebump moments
with Sly Stone (far left)
The 5th Dimension and
the ecstatic audience;
(inset top) the bill,

а missing late addition
Sly’s June 29 show.

Barry Feinstein, Josh Giroux

A mind can blow those
clouds away: (clockwise from
n) George Harrison in
1970; Dhani at high altitude;

the ultra-deluxe All Things
Must Pass; the box’s figurine
and laser-scanned gnomes.

’S ALL

THINGS MUST PASS, GOES
UBER-DELUXE (WITH GNOMES)

ACK IN JANUARY 2001, only 10

months before his death, George

Harrison ехрге: 55е d his ongoing
dissatisfaction with the “big production" of
All Things Must Pass in the linernotes for the
album’s 30th anniversary reissue: “It was
difficult to resist remixing every track,”
he noted. Now, for the upcoming 50th
anniversary motherlode edition of his already
expansive 1970 album (pandemic-delayed
and due in August), some tasteful retrofitting
has been applied.

“My dad was not a fan of reverb,” Dhani

Harrison tells MOJO, on the phone from
his family’s Friar Park estate in Henley-on-
Thames, explaining that the new, from-the-
ground-up mixes of the landmark triple
album involved painstaking audio restoration
and a foregrounding of his father’s vocals,
somewhat stripping back Phil Spector’s layers
of effects. “It’s like restoring a painting,”
Harrison adds. “We're so careful. Every stage
has been A/B’ed [comparing the new and
earlier versions] along with the original.
When you hear it, it’s just mindblowing."
The new Super Deluxe All Things Must

Pass comprises 70 tracks over five CDs or
eight LPs, reclaiming the solo acoustic demos
from the hands of the bootleggers. Dhani
recalls his dad having a significant conversa-
tion with Bob Dylan regarding outtake
. М n . jis

curation: “I remember him
talking back in the '90s to Bob
and say ing, "You've just got to
release all your bootlegs. Make
it sound great and own it. Take
it back. We wanted to make it
so good that there's no way you
could ever want to bootleg
these ever again."

From the 30 included demos
(26 previously unreleased),
Dhani singles out the whimsical
groover Cosmic Empire,
= .
along with the man-

tra-like Dehra Dun,

while other highlights
тпл

include a different

version of Sour

Milk Sea from

the Esher sketch

for The White

Album and a Sun Records-style slapback
rocker titled Going Down To Golders Green.

Harrison and engineer Paul Hicks (also
responsible for recent sonic restorations for
The Beatles, the Lennon estate and The
Rolling Stones) together mixed a staggering
110 tracks, before making the final selection:
Of what Dhani calls the preliminary “small
band” versions of ATMP songs (featuring
Ringo on drums and Klaus Voormann on
b gd he admits that the mixing of an
alternate I'd Have You Any time was an
affecting moment.

“It broke my heart,” he says. “I just
started sobbing. Paul looked at me and said,
*OK, so we're doing it then.’ There was no
question as to whether or not this was the
right way to go because it’s just so powerful.
Ultimately, everything had to be emotional.”

Meanwhile, an Uber Deluxe Edition of
the album, limited to 3,000, will be housed
in a wooden crate along with Rudraksha
prayer beads, a seven-inch-tall
figurine of George and
!/isth-scale laser-scanned
gnomes as featured on the
original cover, and a bookmark
cut from a pine tree on the
Harrison estate.

*You actually g get a piece
of Friar Park histor y," Dhani
enthuses of the crate edition,
modelled on a Victorian ale
chest. “I wanted it to be
like a time capsule.

It looks like it's lasted
100 years and will last
another 100 years."

Tom Doyle

All Things Must Pass 50th
Anniversary Edition will be

available in various formats via

Capitol/UMe on A ugust 6.

GIMME FIVE... MUSICAL CASH-INS

The iue Scene

Marcel Rodd's attitude-
over-budget label provides
campery and naffness galore.
The Good Earth later birthed
Mungo Jerry, but calling the
lasttune Unwashed, Unwant-
ed wastempting fate.

Freakbeats," naughty Genesis
P-Orridge and Richard Norris
presenttheir idea of acid
house (trippy voice samples,
funky breakbeats) without, it
seems, having heard any
actual acid house.

3 version ofthe
TVtheme sung
by ex-Cricklewood Palais star
DickJames was actually by
Albertos Y Lost Trios Paranoias
singing in questionable
accents. John Peel was a fan.

The Good Earth Various The Charlie Leda

Swinging London «The Tal Parkas 'elcome Tc

(SAGA, 1968) (CASTALIA RECORDINGS, 1988) The Ballad (METRONOME, 1978)
Before hippy ፳ Hedgingits He зере There were
wigs in Woolies, [3 bets with the (PARANOID PLASTICS, 1980) f$ many disco
abilious IHR subtitle Complete with | cash-in
Carnaby Street m "Original UK е i bogus 2-Tone መጋ Wil records, but
knock-off on Acid Dance sleeve,this ska how many

were made by ex-Tangerine
Dreamer Peter Baumann,
undercover and under the
influence of Donna Summer
and Giorgio Moroder It has
its period appeal, but ennui
sets in with Caroussel.

(0 UMBIA, 1967)
p=

LSD-ploitation
or pre-cogni-
tion? Rusty
Evans, who
was also
behind '66's Psychedelic
Moods by The Deep, started
outasarockabilly but by the
Summer of Love was turned
on to fuzz, weird effects and
titles like Mind Bender.
Beware contact highs.

14 MOJO

S.J.M. CONCERTS PRESENTS

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The Ladykillers Tour

With Very Fragrant Guests

—SQUEEZE—

DECEMBER 2021

Thu 02 ABERDEEN P&J Arena
Fri 03 GLASGOW The SSE Hydro

Sat 11 MANCHESTER AO Arena
Mon 13 CARDIFF Motorpoint Arena
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Thu 16 NEWCASTLE Utilita Arena
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| лл BRIGHTON Centre Sat 18 LONDON The O2 Arena
, | |. Thu 09 LI OOL M&S Bank Arena УУУ
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September 2021

14 Perth - Concert Hall

В 15 Dunoon - Queens Hall

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22 Newcastle - O2 City Hall 20 London - Palladium

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December 2021

19 еш Barrowland*
20 еш Barrowland

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21 Glasgow - Barrowland

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FIND US ON fY Bas

err

-
|
1907227

э-э,

>...”

| Sore _

Title: Dark Matters
Due:September
Songs: If
Something's Gonna
Kill Me (It Might As
Well Be Love) / And
If YouShould See
Dave... /TheLines/
Payday / The Last
Men On The Moon /
White Stallion

The Buzz: “| was
wiped out fora

couple of weeks

after Dave died but

thenitwas, we've

got this body of work

_ Still blowing a storm: and we'vegotto

The Stranglers' JJ complete it. So we
Burnel stays in tune; did. thinkit'llbea
(inset) the late goodtestamentto
Dave Greenfield. himandThe

Stranglers.” JJ Burnel

SAY FARE-

WELL TO DAVE GREENFIELD
WITH DARK MATTERS

66 C AN YOU hear me?" says Stranglers
bassist JJ Burnel from his home in
the south of France. “I’m outside

and the mistral is blowing..." He should be

in the UK to put the finishing touches to

The Stranglers’ 18th LP Dark Matters, but a

positive coronavirus test forced a U-turn en

route to the ferry in early May. “I had no
symptoms,” he says. “Was it a false positive?

Was | immune? Or just god-like, ha ha!”

Asis common in The Stranglers’ world,
levity touches on more serious matters. Dave

Greenfield, the group's keyboardist since
1975, played on eight of the 11 songs before
succumbing to Covid on May 3, 2020.

The recording sessions, which started in
late 2018 and continued over the next six
months, were for the band’s first album since
2012's Giants. They worked at Charlton Farm,
their HQ of 20 years near Bath, Somerset,
with producer and Wurzels alumnus Louie
Nicastro. “We started writing some of the
material nearly 10 years ago,” says JJ. "I had
about 300 ideas. In the last three or four years

we started trying to make sense of
them. We used to really enjoy meeting
up and rehearsing late throughout the
night. We were a band who enjoyed
each other's company.

^Dave'd come in with his little
bag and get very drunk and just play,” he
continues, "but he was entirely sober on
thefinal recordings. He was an exceptional
musician. When you've known and loved
someone for 45 years... | think we had four
rows in that time. | mean, he was really out
there, and recently we realised why that was,
he was high functioning Asperger's. Of
course, none of us knew, when we said
goodbye to him, it would be the last time.

But we managed to get him in there, before
he broke on through to the other side."

Though he was “wiped out" when
Greenfield passed, finishing the record was,
he says, “the first priority, and if it’s the last
one, so be it.” The final three tracks made
without Greenfield include lead track And If
You Should See Dave..., which was recorded
remotely between Charlton Farm, southern
France and guitarist/co-vocalist Baz Warne's
home in Wearside. A retro-West Coast
farewell, its line "this is where your solo
would go" is intensely poignant.

MOJO also asks after retired Stranglers
drummer Jet Black. "Jet's got an opinion on
everything we do, and we speak often," says
JJ. "He's still in the background - éminence
grise, as we say in France, he he!"

Elsewhere, the album shows a broad
variety of styles, from classic Stranglers growl
to synth pop and dance rock: subjects touch
upon the Arab Spring, dreams of space,
nemesis and retribution, and more. "I don't
just want to talk about love and arses," says JJ.

But will this be the last Stranglers album?
“I'm not so sure,” says the man who still has
to record one of the LP's tracks in French and
Japanese. "I'm on a bit of a creative roll, and
we've still got a lot to prove to ourselves.

But we can't wait another 10 years."

They'll also be getting back on the road,
having recruited an as-yet unnamed new
keysman from a crack Stranglers tribute act.
"He's an absolute disciple of Dave, so he'll be
note perfect," says JJ. "We'll be playing alot of
the pieces Dave embellished and elevated. It's
afucking big empty space there, but, yeah..."
lan Harrison

...on receiving the eighth
Woody Guthrie Prize in May,

spoke of his debt to the

folk giant and revealed,

"We have a record com-

ing out soon that's set

largely in the West”

... beats аге rollin” say

i (right) of

theirnewLP ...Ronald

Isley has been working with
Е. It's expected to be part of

LING Dre's long-awaited concept epic
Detox, which was first announced on
2002 and was cancelled before

the last year anda half,”
guitarist Billy Duffy told the
Tone-Talk guitar channel. “The

rising again; other voices
that've been linked to the

project include Snoop Pistol Paul Cook's

Dogg, Eminem and group -
Jay-Z... are ...Duffy's
continuing to work with old pal

Tom Dalgety on their hasalso suggested he's
newLP."We've been working on his fourth LP
digging away at that for 5

philosophy in the Cult camp really is
about quality not quantity... we're
well, well into the process." He
added he'd also played on
new album SNAFU by Sex

representative could neither
confirm nor deny that their new
album will feature disco influences...

V 's new sleep-themed

LP Somnia arrives in September,

investigating "sleepless

paranoia, strange
encounters, fever dreams
and meditation"...

& Björn Ulvaeus told
Melbourne's Herald
Sun that (left)
would definitely release

five new songs this year.

“The four of us stand in the
studio for the first time in 40

years and there's just something in
knowing what we've been through...”

16 MOJO

Getty (4)

KILIMANJARO PRESENTS

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THE COMMON GROUND TOUR

MARCH 2022
TUE 15 YORK BARBICAN
WED 16 CAMBRIDGE CORN EXCHANGE
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ойы Ө

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SEPTEMBER 2021

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ШАУ ЧЕЧ УЧ скег.со:ик |

ROCK'N'ROLL

=
9
E
9

v
=

ይ ላኡ

The

protest

Ira

regularly imbued with a sense of

melancholia, MOJO finds Jackson
Browne to be remarkably chirpy, recalling a
London promotional visit in another century
when publicist Derek Taylor dragged him in
to watch a sweary Sex Pistols rampaging at Bill
Grundy on live TV. “Pretty funny," he says,
“а harbinger of things to come." Originally
emerging as the archetypal voice of California
in tandem with the Eagles, these days he's also
an ecological campaigner and political activist
who sued the Republican Party (and won)
when John McCain used his song Running
On Empty in his 2008 presidential bid.

Е OR SOMEONE whose music is

The title track of your new album, Downhill
From Everywhere, offers a depressed view
of the world.

How could you not have а depressed view of
the world? The title resonates with the world
generally, but it’s also about the health of the
ocean, which is downhill from everywhere
and is the repository of all

humanity’s activities.

When did you start taking
a stand on politics? Your
earlier work was more
personal than political.

| was always drawn to political
activism. | grew ир in the civil
rights era. | demonstrated and
was active as a teenager and
was involved before | was
ableto write anything
political. But, as my friend

18 MOJO

Jackson Browne, not
\ a pretender: “1 knew
1 nothing before, |
9 know nothing now."
Jackson's shading to the rest of the record.
Top 5 tracks Songs take on resonances of things
DR Gaye that have happened since they've
415 Going On j i
Steven Van Zandt says, what's more (ШҮ ር WIEN, The Pretenaerisnot
personal than your political? 2 The Beach Boys about my wife's suicide, but songs
God Only Knows l'd written before mysteriously
You lived through some crazy Кз ны became more about that. | wrote
times of course -all the excesses ЖЕДЕ, For A Dancer for someone else who
of'70sLA... (COLUMBIA, 1965) died and that was on the album
Marc Cohn Ql. ,
Do people no longer take drugs ог NCE E before The Pretender [1974 s Late For
get caught up in excess? There is 5 Little Feat Rock The Sky}. wrote it living ina house
nothing more excessive than And Roll Doctor with her [Phyllis Major] and our child
celebrity life in the USA. It did seem TORT and gradually the song became

to me that was to be avoided апа!

tried to give fame a wide berth. The degree
materialism has prevailed seems to have
vanquished higher ideals. There's no place
you can escape what's happening in the
ecological and political realms, symbolised
by the golden toilet at Trump Towers. Not
that much has changed since the '60s and
"705, but all through history people have tried
to create social change. It's just that now,
time is running out.

Do you look back on your work with
satisfaction?

| reflect more on the low points! | made a lot of
mistakes, but life is for learning. There was a

period of about 10 years when | was exhausted.

| thought | was full of energy...
| was certainly full of cocaine.

You’ve always worn your
heart on your sleeve in
song. What was the impact
on you when your wife
[model Phyllis Major]

died in 1976?

It happened in the middle of
making The Pretender. |
stopped for a while. | finished
Sleep’s Dark And Silent Gate
after she died, and it gave

about her. That's how songs work.
They migrate into other parts of your life and
other experiences. Someone said they played
[1993's] Sky Blue And Black at their wedding,
they said "that's our song”. I said "Really?" It's a
break-up song. People hear what they want to.

You had quite a feud with Joni Mitchell
after your wife died - did you ever bury
thehatchet?

No!

Whathave youlearned?

That life is longer than you think it is and is full
of surprises. | basically know nothing. | knew
nothing before and І know nothing now.

I started to write a song with Waddy Wachtel
called Don't Know Nothing No More, Didn't
Know Nothing Before... but we didn't finish it.

Tellus something you've nevertold an
interviewer before...

Colin Irwin

Downhill From Everywhere is out on July 23 on
Inside Recordings.

REVEALED! 'S
SANSKRIT-VIA-MOTOWN
SOLO WURLITZER OPUS

UT NEXT MONTH, Alice

Coltrane's Kirtan: Turiya Sings

captures the godmother of spiritual
jazz at the peak of her practice. Originally a
private press cassette, elements of it were
heard on The Ecstatic Music Of Alice Coltrane
Turiyasangitananda, the superb 2017 Luaka
Bop comp which won new legions of admirers
and was MOJO's Reissue Of The Year. But this
edition is something rarer still, and captures
the Detroit jazz innovator's unadorned

ultimately won out. *This is what you heard
at the ashram,” says Ravi. “My mother
leading the congregation, who would sing
along too.”

The master tapes were discovered when
Coltrane came out of semi-retirement in
2004 to work with Ravi on her final album,
Translinear Light. “When I heard them, I was
blown away. I started speaking to Universal
about releasing it immediately,” he says.
Their power was undimmed when Raviand
engineer Steve Genewick finally began
mixing 17 years later: “As soon as I heard my
mother’s voice coming through in such an
immediate way, I Ы to compose myself. It

Ithinkit was about'63. | was
11.1 was already playing
guitar at home [іп Indianap-
olis], already finger-poppin'
and grooving. My elder
brother had a set of bongos,
I'd beat on those, and pots and pans,
driving my mother crazy. Then | heard
Fingertips on the radio. It started with
the MC bringing him out, calling him a
12-year-old genius, and the rhythm
started. | think Stevie starts playing
bongos, then harmonica. It's a minute
before he starts singing. Man, it seemed
like it went on forever. The recording
was live, and I'd never heard anything that
exciting, or someone so talented do so
many things in the course of how many
minutes it was! It had everything that I
think music brings to the table, the
excitement - how ittakes you to another
place and elevates you beyond belief. His
talent was everywhere. thought, | don't
know how you do that, but I'd love to
know! | wanted to be a 12-year-old genius.
He certainly was. So, | went downtown to
buy the record. | fancied myself having
decent rhythm, when І heard it, it was
like it was all right to be finger-poppin’,
let's rock, non-stop. In 6th grade we
were putting bands together, playing
songs of the day, but | never remember
being able to pull off Fingertips.
Another record changed my life, and

original passes for the album: just her
Wurlitzer and voice, put down live in one take.
“н goes back to the sessions she played for
her students each Sunday," says producer
Ravi Coltrane, her son, saxophonist and
curator, "when the Wurlitzer became her

was overw helming to hear the sound of her
voice so clearly, as if she was in the room."

How much of it goes back to her roots
playing organ in the Mount Olive Baptist
Church? “When I’ve played it to friends, the
first thing they hear is the gospel,” says Ravi.
“It’s the sound of Detroit, you can hear
Motown in its harmonies.”

For all its meditative heft, he admits

primary voice.”

Coltrane’s spirituality helped her
overcome the trauma of losing her husband,
bebop sax god John Coltrane, in 1967. A
single mother with four children, she sought
guidance from Swami Satchidananda (the
Hindu guru who opened Woodstock), took
on the name Turiyasangitananda (“the
transcendental lord’s highest song of bliss”)
and began a voyage beyond
jazz with 1971’s harp-laced
Journey In Satchidananda.

After regular pilgrimages
to India, Coltrane estab-

curating his parents’ catalogues is a process
that has to be carefully weighed: “I’m always
excited to hear an unre-
leased recording, But with
that excitement comes the
responsibility of honouring
my parents’ legacies with
dignity.” The good news is
“the те ’s plenty of incredible
music" in the can, much of

lished her own ashram,
the Vedantic Centre, in
California in 1975, where

it's hard to pick between them: Dylan's
Like A Rolling Stone. It was 1965, | was
just post-puberty, and | remember being
in the car. My mother parked outside the
drug store and wentin, and Like A
Rolling Stone cameon the radio, апа!
remember felt so changed Ithought my
mother wouldn't recognise me. | was
convinced | was now a different person.
He was singing, "How does it feel?” Апа!
was going, “I know! I know how it feels!"
Whatever it was, | don't know. He rewrote

she adapted Sanskrit
bhajans (Indian hymns)

to her original melodies.
Initially apprehensive about
releasing the songs without
the str ings and sy athe "sizers
she later added — almost the
opposite scenario to when
Alice added overdubs to
her husband's posthumous
album Infinity in 1972 — the
purity of the recordings

it truffled out by Japanese
mega-fan and super-sleuth
Yushiro Fujioka. Next, in
autumn, is a John Coltrane
Quartet live album recorded
in the same week as his
1965 Pharoah Sanders
collaboration, Live In Seattle.
“John sounds amazing on
it," beams Ravi. *They're
playing material from A Love
Supreme and it has real

songwriting. Thosetwo records, man. historic value.

Astoldto lan Harrison Andy Cowan

Kirtan: Turiya Sings is released

John Hiatt with The Jerry Douglas Band's
July 16 on Impulse!

Leftover Feelings is out now on New West.

David McClister, Rederns/Frans Schellekens, Getty

LITTLE zx

STEVIE WONDER

THE 12 YEAR OLD

From her to eternity: (right)
Alice Coltrane performing
in 1987 and (above) with
son Ravi in 2004.

Getty

Feline all right: Ellen
Mcllwaine and friend,

1972; (below) Ellen today
with her school bus.

HENDRIX FAVE

» STILL
BLAZING UP THE
BOTTLENECK BLUES

N 1966, BLUES guitarist Ellen McIlwaine

got the biggest gig of her life. Two sets per

night, six nights a week, for six months, at
New York’s Cafe Au Go Go — all for a flat fee
of $1.50 a night. “That was when I met Jimi
Hendrix for the first time,” she remembers
of that far-off Greenwich Village residency.
“He was a gentle, brilliant accompanist and
a great friend; like an older brother."

The 21-year-old with the pre-Raphaelite
look and the Guild acoustic had a globetrot-
ting backstory. Born in Nashville but adopted
at five weeks old, she was raised by mission-
aries in Kobe, Japan. Discovering the
American Forces Network, she fell hard for
the likes of Fats Domino and Professor
Longhair. Hendrix's influence, meanwhile,
was heard on her 1968 studio debut fronting
blues rock outfit Fear Itself, a group she
formed then disbanded after that sole
long-player, the departure of one bassist and
the death of his replacement.

For 1972's Bonnie-Raitt-via-Betty-Carter

20 MOJO

solo long-player, Honky

Tonk! Angel, she decided
to go all out. It's a
maximalist maelstrom:
intricate,
deeply funky, with the
occasional gnarled psych
freakout, scat digression
and hillbilly yodel thrown
in. Sadly, her record
company were less
enthusiastic about
her versatility.

“It’s always been

a hindrance as well
as an asset to be

instinctive,

completely origi nal,”
McIlwaine explains.
“Critics don’t know
what to compare me
to. I played a few gigs
in Pennsylvania with
Tom Waits — we both
didn’t fit into any
convenient box.”

After her three
solo LPs of lovelorn
defiance failed to take
off, her record compa-
ny took the unusual
step of preventing
her playing guitar on
her own album.

*[ was told I didn't
‘have the chops"
she says. “Every night

I rocked my acoustic and cried in the
apartment hotel they put me up in.”

In retaliation, McIlwaine set off alone,
recording The Real Ellen McIlwaine with the
Ville Émard Blues Band in Montreal, playi ing
with her hero Jack Bruce and moving to

Calgary. She created soundtracks to plays
and films (including 1999 environmental
doc umentary Poc ket Desert: Confessions
Of A Snake Killer) and gigged relentlessly,
sleeping in her minivan to save money.

Thanks in part to an excellent 1995
reissue on Stony Plain Recordings, she
was sampled by Fatboy Slim on 1996%
Song ForL indy, and became a rare groove
favourite with the likes of
Gilles Peterson and David
Holmes. Still a cult prospect
(*No interest, no gigs and no
money, ” McIlwaine retorts),

|| : she continued to play inter-

Honky Tonk Angel

(POLYDOR, 1972)

nationally, including Japanese
club engagements with

DJ Ken Yanai. Still, she
needed to pay her rent, and
since 2013 she has driven

Amind-expand-
ing, slide-guitar
driven take on
funk, folk and
jazz, with a killer
version ‘of Blind Faith's Can't
Find My Way Home and choppy
Staxfunk workout Toe Hold.
Charisma and technical virtuosi-
ty shine through.

We The People
(POLYDOR, 1973)
À Folky originals
showcase her
talent, covers of
Jack Bruce show
her versatility. Her
unaccompanied Farther Along
is spiritually sound, her take on
Glenn Yarbrough's wicky wacky
folk Everybody Wants To Go To
Heaven celestial.

a school bus.

“T never had any children
because I gave up everything
to play music. Now I have b
loads,” she says. “I would not
do overa single minute: it
took every thing I went
through to get me where
Iam today.”

She’s currently working
on a documentary, and w ill
complete her autobiogr: aphy
this summer.

“If they have to wheel me
out on a gurney, I will still
crank ир the slide and blast
says McIlwaine, who

away,”
The Real Ellen celebrates 40 years of sobriety
Mcllwaine this November. “Never ever
(KOTAI, 1975)

ill I quit."
Opening with her "qe

discombobulat- Andy Morris

ing take on See Ellenmcilwaine.com and
Stevie's Higher Bandcamp for sounds and info.
Ground, : |

Mcllwaine's strongest LP also
boasts covers of John Lee
Hooker and Albert King. The
originals, like Down So Low,
are equal parts heart-rending
and thrilling.

ARCHITECTURE & MORE TOUR.
NOVEMBER 2021. ор

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PASE Жи: е;

can't hang around today - he's due at
work in an hour. “I gota job at Rough

Trade's warehouse in Bristol seven months
ago, to stay sane over lockdown," he says.
“| quite like the extra money as well."

As well as packing up popular choices
by Rag'n'Bone Man, Jane Weaver and Sault,
he's also been dispatching pallets of Squid's
bracing debut Bright Green Field, which
debuted at UK Number 4 in May. It’s some
achievement for such a non-linear, stylistically
catholic record, where motorik rhythms
sharp-elbow it out with funk, math-rock,
jazz, electronics, tape manipulation, dub and
beyond, as Judge speaks-shouts lyrics of being
marooned in his immediate environment and
the virtual and psychological spaces beyond.

“Apart from one song, the whole thing
was written before we even knew what
coronavirus was," says Judge of its oblique
topicality. "It's just a series of accidents that
it seems so timely in mood... we write totally
asa group, апа it's five people with differing
opinions shouting at each other, but each
moment of the music has to be liked by
everyone, and every voice gets heard."

They began when Judge, Louis Borlase

S SINGING drummer Ollie Judge

22 MOJO

INDIE-KOSMISCHE
SCREAMERS SQUID
ARGUE IN HARMONY

With Cephalopod On Our
Side: Squid on the rocks
(from left): Louis Borlase,
Anton Pearson, Ollie
Judge, Arthur Leadbetter
and Laurie Nankivell

Road

surreal."

Cool."
(guitars, vocals), Arthur Leadbetter
(keyboards, strings), Laurie Nankivell
(bass, brass) and Anton Pearson
(guitars, vocals) met at the University
of Sussex. Previously, Judge had
made chillwave as Twin Empire,

FACT SHEET
* Forfans of: Black
Midi, Young Knives,
Black Country New

* Squid love being
onthe Warp label.
Says Judge: “I'm still
pinching myself. |

ዘ grew up with Aphex
M Twin, Boards Of

| Canada and Flying
Lotus, and to be
labelmates with
people like that, and
to havethe Warp
logo a millimetre
away from our band
name, is totally

ወ “I'm not gonna go
for Phil Collins," says
Judge, when asked
whois his favourite
singing drummer.
Instead, he cites
Cold Pumas' Patrick

Krautrocky," he

says ofthe latter. “1
remember looking at
their drummer who
sang and thinking,

е Squiet Please! is
the group's regularly
updated Spotify
playlist of current
faves, which at press
time includes 0)
Rashad, Late Of The
Pier, Anika and Harry

“It’s five people
with differing

opinions shouting

at each other.”
OLLIE JUDGE

disturbing reflection of post-Brexit

Fisherand Zach Choy | — Britain and its nerve-chewing
from Crack Cloud. dialand Atti th
Pitti media landscape. At times the

tracklist drills into the subcutane-
ous panic layer with literary echoes
of psycho-social augurs Douglas
Coupland, Mark Fisher and JG
Ballard, whose 1974 novel Concrete
Island haunts queasy groove G.S.K.
"Ballard would have enjoyed the
empty airports and deserted
holiday resorts, but | don't reckon
he'd have liked no cars on the
road," is Judge's verdict on how the

Nankivell was into experimental Thumann. Seer of Shepperton would have
music (one endeavour involved KEY TRACKS weathered the early lockdown.
using a waterproof microphone to e GSK. Stirring again after too long in
record the sound of ice in buckets * Pamphlets enforced hibernation, Squid tour
cracking) and the other three were x cmi Britain from July, head to Europe

in a funk and soul band called,

in October and go to the US in

variously, Better Call Soul, Soul

Campbell and Our Soul. Attending a show
by Godspeed You! Black Emperor in October
2015, says Judge, was, "a very early Squid
experience and an interesting start point.

We just wanted to be in a band like that, but
when we tried, we realised it was really, really
hard and started doing punk music instead."
He adds their earliest shared influences were
the open-ended kosmische explorations of
Меш, Can and flute-era Kraftwerk.

Full-flight live gigs and a series of
mundane/wired releases including House-
plants and the Town Centre EP started the
Squid cult, but they left them off the album,
which is a chaotically integrated and often

November. They're already thinking
of album number two. "The music we're
writing is alot more melodic and | definitely
want to start shouting less," says Judge.
^| mean, I'd love to be a pop band doing
three-minute songs." Until then, the Rough
Trade warehouse calls. "My work friends are
always poking fun,” he says. "They take
pictures of me packing up the Squid record
and putit on Instagram, saying the singer of
Squid's packing his own record up, what a
humble and down-to-earth guy. | hope the
ego doesn't catch up with me. could always
flog the albums on a market, | suppose."

lan Harrison

Bright Green Field is out now on Warp.

Holly Whitaker

Diana Markosian, Shutterstock

'S *LOVE-
ORIENTED INTOXICATION
MUSIC" AND THE SWEET
SMELL OF SUCCESS...

66 С ALLING SOMETHING Sufi can
lead to misunderstanding," warns
Arooj Aftab down the line from

her home in Brooklyn, keen to move on from

the "ambient neo-Sufi" tag given to her 2015

debut, Bird Under Water. So what do you do

when your sound is distinctly sui generis, the

deceptive complexity of Terry Riley snuggling

up to the soulful passion of

Abida Parveen, the ethereal

lighting of Elizabeth Fraser

captured in the same bottle

as the pastoral Nick Drake?

"It's minimal with repetitive

structures,” she explains.

“A peaceful, love-oriented,

intoxication music.”

Born in Saudi Arabia, Aftab was raised in
Lahore, where she had a few cover versions
go viral. “1 quickly realised
| didn't have the skills or resources. | had a
bigger vision and | had to pursue it, leave my
family behind, fuck it all and do this thing.”
She moved to America and majored in
production and engineering at Boston's
Berklee College of Music. “I was thinking
ahead. | wanted to make sure | would be able
to do work that wasn’t just music-based.”

Supporting herself with day jobs as an

form in a different way"; musically more
international, with a nostalgia and sadness
throughout. Aftab talks about ^worlds once
known" - the Pakistan she grew up in no
longer feels like it belongs to her - and about
emerging from grief after the death of her
brother. “I feel like by saying it, that this is what
is being manifested. Grief is very bizarre, and
it doesn't ever go away. The
'emergence' is more assimilat-
ing this into your daily life."
Between those two albums
came the home-recorded
soundscapes of 2018's Siren
Islands. “1 bought some
analogue synthesizers and
tape machines, wrote four
pieces, didn't collaborate, no acoustic
instruments, broke all my personal rules.
It was fantastic." The album thematically
embodies female empowerment, so is there
advice she would like to pass on to women
with musical aspirations? "Understand what
happens in the studio,” she says. "Nobody
will take you seriously unless you have the
language to communicate what you want.
l'm a huge пега. I love cables and knobs
and microphones, and |
want to able to focus and

audio engineer and editor, she recorded Bird ^ hotworryabouthow | hin ыы
Under Water, merging traditional Pakistani annoying dudes can be. балда Newsom,
David Hutcheon

Hariprasad
Chaurasia, Cocteau
Twins, Terry Riley.

Vulture Prince was
inspired by the
Tower of Silence, the
Parsi funeral pyre
upon which the dead
are consumed as
carrion. "There's only
50 much you can rip
off the Zoroastrians,"
she says.

For maximum
enjoyment ofthe
album, there's a
Vulture Prince
perfume oil available
on her Bandcamp
page, created by
Dana El Masri. "The
perfume is what the
album should sound
like, but it's doing it,
it's totally doing it."

music with downbeat electronica. Vulture
Prince came out in Aprilthis year, picking up
the threads of its predecessor but "driving the

Arooj Aftab's Vulture Prince is
outnow on New Amsterdam.

Lullaby
Baghon Main
Island No 2

Arooj Aftab:
breaking all her
personal rules.

MOJO PLAYLIST

THE SMILE

The surprise of Glastonbury’s livestream
from May 22: Thom Yorke (above), Jonny
Greenwood and Sons Of Kemet drummer
Tom Skinner’s new band. Their intriguing
set peaked with this Cure-esque glower.
Find it: Twitter @thesmiletheband

THE BEACH BOYS

Time to retire those old Landlocked boot-
legs, as this serene Cali beatitude is officially
release. From the Sunflower/Surf's Up out-
takes box set Feel Flows, released on July 30.
Find it: streaming services

туум SHARON VAN ETTEN

& ANGEL OLSEN

d Alchemical results from this
Vi indie hook-up, as Springsteen
meets late Abba's epic pop theatre.

Find it: YouTube

MOUSE RAT

The grunge revival starts here, with the
debut from Pawnee, Indiana’s second-best
band. Parks & Recreation fans will already
know Chris Pratt’s sensational Veddering.
Find it: streaming services

XAN TYLER &
MAD PROFESSOR

Technique singer Tyler pairs
with UK dubmaster. More sunny
than spacey, her voice balances lyrical bite.
Find it: YouTube

PAUL WELLER AND MADNESS

Live at the Palladium in May, Jimmy Cliff's
anthem finds Weller and the Mads in soulful
yet justified mood.

Find it: YouTube

A CERTAIN RATIO

ACR pay tribute to Andrew

ж Weatherall via depth-charging
techno with extra drums.

Find it: ACR: EPC 12-inch/Bandcamp

NATHAN SALSBURG

Scholar of folk tradition turns his atten-
tion to Hebrew psalms, with help from Joan
Shelley, Will Oldham and James Elkington.
Find it: Bandcamp

THE CLASH

Fan Gerald Manns took The
Clash's synthy Cut The Crap, iso-
| Й lated Joe Strummer's voice and
re-recorded it with aggro-punk guitars. Its
possibly unofficial new vinyl release Mohawk

Revenge will help fund a Berlin Clash museum.

Find it: YouTube

STEWART LEE
The 41st best stand-up ever folk-drones
The Nightingales' 1982 song of toil, with the

'Gales' newie Ten Bob Each Way on the 45 flip.

Find it: Fire 7-inch/streaming services

MOJO 23

моЈо `
HEROES |

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THE MOJO [INTERVIEW

Through 50 years of
taboo-busting, hat revamps
and beard-growth, the
"Dali of the Delta” has
kept faith with the blues.
Has his mojo never flagged?
"Plug in, turn it up - that's
always been the reward,"
says Billy Gibbons.

Interview by DAVID FRICKE • Portrait by ROGER KISBY

ARELY 10 MINUTES AFTER HE PICKS UP
the phone on a recent afternoon, singer-guitarist
Billy F. Gibbons answers the day's big question
without even being asked.
"They're in the studio today!" he exclaims in
his deep, sandpaper drawl. ‘They’ are his ZZ Тор
bandmates of the last half-century: bassist Dusty Hill and drummer
Frank Beard. While Gibbons is on the line from his pandemic
refuge in one of Las Vegas's oldest residential neighbourhoods —
a house he and his wife Gilligan have dubbed Rancho G — the
rhythm section is in Houston hammering at new material for
ZZ Тор? first album in a decade.
“Тһе high card I was able to pull was writing songs," Gibbons says
of his lockdown year, which began with the cancellation of his

venerable group's 2020 tour, then veered into sessions for a new,
ferociously good solo album, Hardware, made at a studio in the
California desert with ex-Guns N'Roses
drummer Matt Sorum and guitarist Austin

Gibbons, who's added his middle initial — for Frederick, his
father’s name — to his professional handle, was born on December
16, 1949 in Houston into remarkable circumstances. The son of a
pianist and conductor for films, he attended his first blues gigs as a
child, courtesy of his family's black housekeeper. In 1967,
Gibbons’ teenage combo, The Moving Sidewalks, scored a regional
hit with their debut single, 99th Floor. But turning-point encounters
with The 13th Floor Elevators and The Jimi Hendrix Experience
ultimately led Gibbons to launch an early line-up of ZZ Top in
1969. When Beard and Hill joined in 1970, Gibbons' template
was permanently in place: *blues rock with a power trio rock
expressiveness," as he puts it.

His addition of synthesizers and pop-sharpened writing to
1983's Eliminator and '85's Afterburner paid multi-platinum
dividends; the band's drily comic finesse in the MTV-breakthrough
videos for Gimme All Your Lovin’ and Sharp Dressed Man, starring
Gibbons and Hill’s mondo-Gold Rush beards,
didn't hurt. But Gibbons insists that ZZ Top

Hanks. “In the lowest of lows, we hit the highest
of highs," Gibbons declares of Hardware's
twin-guitar sizzle and detours into surf rock and
psychedelia. "And as I was creating music for
that project, I was sending song ideas to Texas.
As much as Frank and Dusty want to hang in
front of the TV and on the golf course, I've been
keeping them in the studio." The guitarist’s

> gritty burst of laughter is not the last as he rolls

5 through his life in blues over the next two hours.

WE’RE NOT WORTHY

Don’t fear the beard,
advises Josh Homme.

“When | first met Billy he'd
come in to play on a Queens
Of The Stone Age record
[Lullabies To Paralyze, 2005].
He was playing guitar and
hit this note and his beard
fell and it muted the strings
and made this harmonic. | sat there stunned.
He said, "That's a first ever beard harmonic.’
Even his beard is a good guitar player.”

have never strayed from their original, primal
thrust. “We’re interpreters of the blues,” he
says. “But we were fortunate to get chummy
with the inventors. And they told us, on more
than one occasion, ‘It’s not about heartache
and sorrow. It runs the whole gamut.

You were born in a blues city and state. But your
father was in a very different show business.

Growing up, it was a constant travelling between
Texas and California. Getting to see how >

МО)О 27

courtesy Billy Gibbons, Getty (6), Bud Lee Picture Maker (2), Camera Press

28 MOJO

< things were done behind the scenes, the
magic that hits the silver screen - that in itself
was an education. My dad was part of the
team of music directors at MGM. This was
before | was born, from 1936 to about 1944.
He learned by ear and taught himself to read
music. It was interesting to learn later that he
didn't even know the name of a C chord until
he was 28 or 29. But he learned to deliver all
sorts of styles.

Except the blues - you got there through
your family's housekeeper.

Stella Matthews - Big Stella – and her
daughter, Little Stella, were instrumental in
lifting the lid, leading me into the wonderful
art form of the blues. My dad, being the
entertainer, was working most evenings with
his group. He would drive with my sister

Pam and | to downtown Houston, and many
times he'd say, "Kids, you want to overnight
with Stella?" Because we were giving her

a ride home.

Stella, by this time, was exhausted; she'd be
asleep by eight o'clock. That's when Little
Stella grabbed us by the hand, and we walked
down two blocks to the juke joint. This was in
the [historically African-American] Fourth Ward,
at the corner of Taft and West Gray. That's
where all the big acts stopped on their way
through town: Jimmy Reed, Howlin' Wolf...

It sounds so improbable, considering your
age and the racial situation in Texas: a
young black woman escorting two white
children into a blues club.

This is where it really gets interesting. Little
Stella ended up marrying a guy named Willie
Francis, who was part of Ray Charles's
organisation. And Willie Francis knew
everybody at the club. So when we were
tiptoeing into the club - Pam was five, | was
seven - it was all smiles: "Yeah, come on in." We
never even questioned it: "Oh, we get to go
hear music!"

And your father took you to a B.B. King
recording session when you were seven
years old...

The main recording studios in Houston were
Bill Quinn's outfit, Gold Star - everybody
knows Lightnin' Hopkins on Gold Star Records
-and Bill Holford's ACA Studios. My dad was
constantly in and out of ACA. One afternoon,
he said, "Why don't you hop in the car? I've got
some work to do at the studio." He put me in

а chair and said, "I want you to sit here. l'Il be in
the office if you need me, but I think you'll
enjoy this. There's an orchestra coming in."

Lo and behold, the orchestra was B.B. King and
company. That moment was instrumental in
leading me to the knowledge that it was the
guitar making the sound | was so attracted to.

You got your first guitar as a Christmas
present when you were 13. What were the
records that had the most impact on you as
you learned to play?

| can say quite pointedly: Jimmy Reed. There
was a song called Honey Don't Let Me Go. It
was a B-side [to the 1956 single You've Got Me
Dizzy]. For some reason, | kept going back to
that one song. And B.B. King had a largely
instrumental track, [1961's] Ain't That Just Like
A Woman - the band shouts the title phrase,
and B.B. would answer on guitar. The third
entry in that grouping would be What'd | Say
by Ray Charles - that electric piano and the
drummer riding the bell of the cymbal. Those
three recordings still have me mystified.

It's funny that you mention What'd I Say.
That electric-piano lick sounds a lot like the
guitar riff in 99th Floor, The Moving
Sidewalks' 1967 debut and one of the first
songs you wrote.

Just goes to show you that certain things don't
die quickly. These riffs still keep coming
around. Take ZZ Top. Here's three guys who
have stayed together for five decades. And
when we get together in a rehearsal room or

A LIFE IN PICTURES

Billy Gibbons: caught by the (face) fuzz.

Ready to jump off at the
99th Floor: young Gibbons"
yearbook photo, 1968.

"You've got a lot of nerve":

The Moving Sidewalks
(Billy, second right) with Jimi
Hendrix, Forth Worth, Texas,
February 17, 1968.

Mudlarks: outtakes (with 4,

below) from the Rio
Grande Mud album shoot,
Texas, August 1971.

au even today, is its
own thing, that other
country" ZZ Top (from
left) Frank Beard, Billy,
Dusty Hill, 1971.

“Мете going to

take Texas to the
world": Dusty and Billy
on the Worldwide Texas
Tour, September 1975.

“Dusty and | just

threw away the
razor": (from left) Hill,
Gibbons and the
beardless Beard.

Las Vegas state of

mind: Gibbons with
wife Gilligan Stillwater
in the Nevada city, 2009.

What's in a name?: Billy
and Scotty Moore flank
B.B., source of both ZZ and "If
he was the King, then we were
headed for the Top."

In the shades: Gibbons

performing Cheap
Sunglasses, on-stage with Jack
White, then of The Raconteurs,
August 31, 2006.
10 “Hell, we were just

having a good time":

Gibbons with his Gibson Les
Paul, on-stage in 1980.

the recording studio, out of a day's session, I'd
say half of it is spent with Frank, Dusty and |
playing songs that we remember from
growing up like [1959's] Linda Lu by Ray
Sharpe, who came out of Dallas. Leaping
forward to the present, to Hardware, | had a
couple of California buddies who were clicking
their heels: “That song, West Coast Junkie —
you've returned to surf sounds!” Well, you can't
deny Walk Don't Run by The Ventures or
Pipeline by The Chantays. Pop music covers
alot of ground.

For a time, The Moving Sidewalks were
housemates in Houston with Austin acid
zealots The 13th Floor Elevators. Was it
trips for breakfast every morning?

There was experimentation on many levels.

| remember going up to the Elevators’ part of
the house and walking into the kitchen. And
there were the Elevators, gathering around the
stove, and they had a cake pan sprinkled with
weed. They had put it under the broiler. The
kitchen became a smokehouse. (Laughs)
Whether you were actively lighting up a joint
or not, you were under the influence.

Could you see the impact of that lifestyle on
their singer, Roky Erickson? And did the
Sidewalks face any of the police harassment
and arrests that broke up the Elevators and
sent Erickson to a mental institution?

Roky's vocal delivery - those maniacal screams
would curl your hair. He had a rage that was
like, "Little Richard, step aside." But the
counterculture was not in favour with law
enforcement or the Great Society. The
Elevators quickly made the decision to hustle
out to the West Coast.

We had the advantage of coming and
going. The success of 99th Floor opened the
door to the long, lonesome highway of
touring. Texas, even today, is its own thing, that
other country. | remember talking with Doug
Sahm about this. He made the exodus [to San

Francisco] with the entire Sir Douglas Quintet.
But he said that the harshness and threats
reinforced that mindset, the obstinance that
goes with the Texas thing: "You're not going to
tell me what to do."

Speaking of audacity, The Moving Side-
walks opened shows in Fort Worth and
Houston for The Jimi Hendrix Experience
in February 1968. And you played two

of Hendrix's hits before he came on.

He didn't mind?

We only had enough songs to deliver a show,
and that included Foxy Lady
and Purple Haze, which we
learned from his first album.
And they were our closing
numbers. On the first night, I
was looking at this guy standing
in the shadows with his arms
folded, stroking his chin. When
we walked off stage, he grabbed
me and said, “I like you. You've
got a lot of nerve." Later, there
was quite a bit of panic as we
tried to get hotel rooms. We
were escorted to the far end of
the hallway. But Jimi said, "Hey,
take the room across the way."

What were the lessons you took from that
time with him?

Hendrix was doing things with the electric
guitar that had not even been thought of, that
it was not designed for. | was playing a
Stratocaster, another thing that endeared me
to him. One night, in the hotel, he said, "Come
check this out." He was taking the spring off
the whammy bar, cutting two [coils] off the
spring so you could really push the bar down
- just dive bomb.

There was the string-bending - how he got
that effect in Foxy Lady - and that powerhouse
backing of Mitch Mitchell on drums and Noel
Redding on bass. Jimi often said, "Man, isn't it

great? | can go from here to the stratosphere,
knowing that l've got a rock-solid wall
supporting those excursions. Nobody loses
the beat. Nobody loses the sense of where
the music is going." From that, | had Dusty
and Frank doing much the same, offering

a rock-solid foundation: going through

the changes but hammering the tonic [note].
That lives on today. When things get back

to live entertainment, ZZ Top will be playing
everything with Dusty holding down the tonic.

You started ZZ Top as a trio in 1969 with Hill

“The Elevators had a
cake pan sprinkled with
weed, put it under the

broiler. The kitchen
became a smokehouse

and Beard joining the next year. What was it
about that format that appealed to you?

The line-up was spare, but the sound was sonic
bombast. Frank and Dusty had already been
learning their chops together as teenagers [in
the Dallas-Fort Worth band American Blues].

| literally inherited as stalwart a backing
section as one could ask for. And all we had to
do was turn on the radio and there was | Feel
Free, Sunshine Of Your Love, all of the
examples of Cream. Between Cream and
Hendrix, | don’t think there were too many
other acts that need to be brought into the
discussion. Right there you've got the Mack
Truck going through a school zone.

Is it fair to say that, from the beginning,
you’ve been the leader?

Well, I'd like to think so (laughs). It's funny - all
three members share the same birth year.
We're only separated by three months.
Unfortunately, I'm the junior executive of the
bunch. But, yeah, I'm looked upon in the
songwriting process. We'll go into the studio.
Frank's drum stick and Dusty's bass guitar are
pointed at me, and they say, “All right, give us
a beat." Or, "Tell us where to go." Frank and
Dusty were able to deliver what | wanted

to hear in my head.

The culture and atmosphere
of Texas are an integral part
of ZZ Top's image: the
ten-gallon hats, album titles
like [1972's] Rio Grande Mud.
Was that your concept from
the start? And where did you
get the band’s name?

Let me back up just a bit. The
Moving Sidewalks were
managed by Steve Ames. We
{?? met during a chance late-night
e encounter at a grocery store.

Steve was driving a brand new

Corvette Stingray – that model

had just been released on the
streets. In addition to being fascinated with
guitars, | was just as hooked on cars.

Steve was like another version of Phil
Spector. He had talent. He knew how to play
and he knew arrangements. He had valuable
input on those records. But he was fascinated
by Texas, having just come from California.
Suddenly, he's surrounded with this strange
footwear, cowboy boots: "And what are these
hats you guys wear?" The elements of Texania
- those peculiarities - became a thing. It never
left. And we came up with the name because it
sounded like В.В. King - ZZ being at the end of
the alphabet. And if he was King, we were
headed for the top. >

“Dusty looked
at me once and
said, 'Some
of this sucks.
But I dont
know how to
do anything

else."

“Where’s the no-no?
Where's the taboo?”
Billy Gibbons at home
in West Hollywood,
April 16, 2020.

— Your longtime manager, the late Bill
Ham, was unusually hands-on, credited
with producing the albums, sometimes as

a songwriter. What were his real contribu-
tions to your success?

He was following in the footsteps of Colonel
Tom Parker. We let Bill wear the title of
songwriter and producer. But Bill’s high card
was keeping three wayward, crazy musicians in
line - and keeping the doors closed so nobody

$0 MOJO

could get to us. That was mainly Colonel Tom's
way of dealing with Elvis Presley: people want
what they can't have. It was an unusual
relationship, but I credit Bill with having had
the chutzpah and gumption to stay with

three guys through the harsh reality behind
the scenes. We were all pushing the limits.

But Bill was ready to take on the world,

and we were all too willing to pony up and

do our best.

What were the bumps in the road? Beard
has spoken candidly about his heroin
addiction in the '70s.

Frank had his challenging moments. There are
a couple of photographs of Frank sitting on the
drum throne with his eyes closed, and he
wasn't concentrating on the next Buddy Rich
riff (laughs). And Dusty and | had our flings with
Jack Daniel's. Let's face it: all of us human
beings are gifted with what | call the Joker

Gene - something in our makeup that we want
to get away from or out of, that makes us go
crazy and take it to extremes.

Hopping on a bus is not necessarily a
glamorous topic. To walk on [stage], plug in,
turn it up - that's always been the reward.
| think of it as the fourth member of the band.
But there were moments when you scratch
your head and think, Good grief, do | want to
continue this madness? | remember Dusty
looked at me once and said, "Some of this
sucks. But | don't know how to do anything
else." We all came to that same realisation: If
we quit, where do we go?

Whose idea was the Worldwide Texas Tour
in 1976 and '77? At a time when Yes and
Pink Floyd were playing arenas with
extravagant stages and lasers, you
recreated the Texas prairie with desert
flora, a buffalo, a longhorn steer, rattle-
snakes and buzzards. What did it cost

and was it worth it?

It was the American bicentennial [in 1976], and
Bill said, "We're going to take Texas to the
people." That was his contribution to the
zaniness. We're still quite friendly with the hero
of that outing: the handler of the livestock, Mr
Ralph Fisher. Everybody knew Ralph on the
rodeo circuit. He was a rodeo clown - the guy
in the funny outfit who ran out in the middle of
the arena to divert the attention of the buckin’
broncos and raging bulls. He had the trained
buffalo, the longhorn steer. He had the black
buzzard, Oscar - who, by the way, is still alive,
on record as the oldest, tamed black buzzard,
as far as we know.

But that menagerie was quite costly. One of
the high figures was the money spent on
making sure the ASPCA was satisfied - that all
of this livestock was being tenderly cared for.
At one point, Frank, Dusty and | learned that
the animals were being treated better than we
were. They had air-conditioned trailers. We
were still in a station wagon. (Laughs) C'mon!

Yet in spite of the sold-out arenas, many
critics dismissed ZZ Top as a boogie band.
Given your love for the blues and respect
for its originators, did that bother you?

It bothered us to no end. We were the
dismissables. Nobody was really dissin' on us
- it was more like a shrug of the shoulders:
“Oh, that stuff over there.” We quickly learned
that our lyric content was not going to be
ushered onto the same shelf as the stuff Bob
Dylan was creating. The more cerebral
moments were far outside of our wheelhouse.
But it encouraged us to keep bringing the
music we enjoyed as a band - "Come see

ZZ Top and have a good time."

The story you've always told about the
beards - that you and Hill surprised each
other when the band reunited after a
three-year break - is hard to believe:
that you had no idea what the other

guy was doing. Were you that separate
during that time?

We were staying in touch by the daily
telephone call. We were playing the waiting
game. This was some stunt, at management
level, to get us out of a stifling contract with
London Records. Warner Bros was waiting in
the wings. All we had to do was stay in touch.
But the beards - people said, "How did you
think of this crazy thing? Especially the irony of
your fearless drummer, the clean-shaven
member whose name is Beard?" The word is
"lazy". Dusty and | just threw away the razor,
and we let it fly.

Eliminator was ZZ Top's MTV breakthrough,
thanks to the videos and electronics. But
you were already working with synthesizers

on 1981's El Loco, in songs like Ten Foot Pole
and Groovy Little Hippie Pad. What was the
attraction for you as a bluesman?

You know when there's a brick wall and you
want to see the other side of it, when
somebody says, "Oh, you shouldn't go there"?
It was always magnetic. You look around and
say, Where's the no-no? Where's the taboo?
Part of the reward for me in the studio is that
glorious moment when the engineers spin
around, look at you and go, "You can't do that."
And | say, "Why not?"

The bass line in Groovy Little Hippie Pad
came from watching a Devo rehearsal. They
were in town, and | happened to stumble into
the venue where they were warming up for the
evening's performance. They were part of this
new faction of bands, getting very experimen-
tal, learning how to make the most of these
newfound contraptions. And Devo had this
mischievous approach that | appreciated.

And | had a good friend who opened my
eyes: "I see you're getting a little rambunctious
here. Have you seen this band Depeche
Mode?" | had just spent some time in France
and England where | started to hear these new

FROM A TO ZZ

Tres classics by the king
of the cyber blues. Your
guide: David Fricke.

GARAGE GUMPTION

The Moving Sidewalks
The Complete Collection
ЖЖЖЖ

ROCKBEAT, 2012

уур The teenage Gibbons

а : christened his '66-68 combo in
the spirit of The 13th Floor

| Elevators: "If they were going

up, | was going further.” This
2-CD box presents that
freaked-out mission in its entirety, including
athoroughly unhinged whack at The Beatles"
| Want To Hold Your Hand and a 1968 LP, Flash,
with Gibbons pointing the way to his next
band in Joe Blues.

SMALL BEARD BOOGIE

ZZ Top
Тгев Hombres
ЖЖЖЖ

LONDON, 1973

After two albums of
straightforward licks, the
songwriting kicks in on ZZ's
first gold record: Gibbons"
frantic-telegraph riff in Waitin"
For The Bus; the elliptical
slither of Jesus Just Left Chicago. Beer Drinkers
And Hell Raisers is an anthemic call to arena
fun. But the roots are strong: Gibbons’
descending bridge in the boogie La Grange is
a Robert Johnson quote.

Billy F. Gibbons
Hardware
ЖЖЖЖ

CONCORD, 2021

Attention guitar freaks:
Gibbons' fretwork on this

"I Mojave-flavoured whirl is off
7 the hook and on the money,
while the many hues of blues
affirm his wide-angle view of
keeping it real: the Elevators flashback in She's
OnFire; the surfin' noir of West Coast Junkie;
the Sergio Leone-style seance Desert High. If
this is where Gibbons is headed on ZZ Top's
next one, look out.

ja ydwate
(

applications for making pop music. A lot of it
was declared the antithesis of heavy, heavy
sounds. But going to see Depeche Mode
completely changed the landscape for me.
They had no drummer, no guitar player, no
bass player - the most austere setup. But if you
closed your eyes, you couldn't believe what
you were hearing. It was heavy as lead.

In an interview a few years ago, you told me
that one of the highest compliments ZZ Top
ever got was from the producer Jim
Dickinson: "You have taken this blues thing
to a very surrealistic place, and it still holds
the tradition."

I've always had a fascination with the
contemporary arts. | tell people this, and they
say, "You're supposed to be this Texas-gun-
slinger guitar player. What's that all about?"

I tell ‘em I’ve been looking at the abstracts for
along time. When | was 17, | made a trip over to
Spain with some friends and we knocked on
the door at Salvador Dali's house. He greeted
us, let us іп. | guess it was kind of a novelty to
have visitors, especially some teenagers going,
^Hey, we like you!" (Laughs)

Dickinson also said, "You guys are the Dali
of the Delta." That's a heady tag. But it still
exists. | was out in the desert for three months
making Hardware, at a studio called Escape.
The closest town was Yucca Valley, right on
the edge of Joshua Tree. But it was more than
just something to do [during the pandemic].
The music acknowledged the surroundings
and that surrealistic energy. It catapulted us
into... (Pauses, then laughs) Hell, we were just
having a good time.

ZZ Top's record sales fell off in the '90s,
even though you were still doing the
business on the road. Were you concerned
that the band was running out of steam?

A little bit of that. There were the glory days, the
mid-'80s, when it seemed like everything was
working. But you look at the present: there is so
much music out there. It's not an uncommon
challenge when you want something new:
“Where do we start?" That's why I'm so excited
about Hardware. It follows suit with what people
are expecting. It doesn't get too far outside the
arena. But there are a couple of twists and turns.

Is there an ultimate ZZ Top album still to be
made? And is it worth the effort? It is a very
different business now...

There's a curious aim over the horizon. What's
lurking over there? There's only 12 notes in the
scale. It’s how you organise them. It can be
aggravating, downright maddening. But one
would be wise in avoiding the shrugging of the
shoulders: "Everything's been done." A lot has
been done. think the higher card is, "Fine,
how about this?"

We're witnessing the evolution of circuit
design and silicon chips - computers figuring
out how to do things faster and better. But if
you come back to the lively spirit within the
human condition, the most talented box of
silicon chips is going to have a hard time
conveying enthusiasm. And it can't play like
Jimmy Reed.

Finally, what does it take to keep the beard
under control? Do you ever get up in the
morning and think, "OK, enough's enough,
time to shave"?

| haven't gotten to that point. Gilligan, she's so
fussy with the latest oils and lotions and
conditioning. She keeps me well groomed.
That side of it is OK. The question still lingers:
do you sleep with the beard under the covers
or over the covers?

Which is it?
I don't know. l'm asleep. ወ

MOJO 51

With their effortless songs and on- P
larks, CROWDED HOLISE made
a good show of flying above the н: а
splits апа ѕаскіпоѕ, апа their drummer's
shocking suicide, told another sto у.
As Neil Finn and Nick Seymour — the
“angsty songwriter” and the “тай 8662:
- regroup and go again, they relive eihe | =
blasphemy апа meot raffles, the good -*
times and bad, with ANDY ЕУЕ 4

Portrait: LYNN GOLDSMITH.

N THE MID ’80s, AMBASSADORS FROM

South Pacific nations were invited to bring their

national dish to a pot luck diplomatic dinner.

When the New Zealand and Australian guests both

turned up with a pavlova it caused a rancorous

regional spat about the meringue-based dessert’s
origin that ran in local media for, well, days.

Likewise, ownership of the region’s second-biggest mu-
sical export (after AC/DC) is also disputed, although
Crowded House’s classic line-up — Neil Finn OBE (from Te
Awamutu, NZ, pop 13,100), Nick Seymour and Paul Hester
(both from Victoria, Australia) — splits 2:1 for the Aussies.
“At the rehearsal for one US chat show,” recalls Seymour
today, “the host introduced us with, ‘Throw another shrimp
on the barbie, here’s Crowded House from Australia.’ Neil
walked over and said, ‘Well, I’m from New Zealand actu-
ally.’ So we ended up deciding to be ‘Antipodean’, which is
just so earnest.”

Frontman Finn’s string of classic guitar-pop songs for
Crowded House — Don’t Dream It’s Over, Four Seasons In
One Day, Weather With You, Fall At Your Feet, Distant Sun,
the list goes on — have earned him precedence. It’s Finn
who calls the group into existence and orders its dissolu-
tion, as he did, for the first time, in 1996, on the verge of a
next-level breakthrough.

“I was all ready for it,” rues Seymour. “Then Neil
rings up to say he’s leaving the band. That took a long time
to get over.”

Finn’s reasons, like his deceptively deep songs of self-
doubt, Catholic guilt and romantic redemption, and like
the man, were complicated.

“I was, and am, ambitious,” he tells MOJO today. “I
wanted and want to be noticed, I wanted the music to be
heard. But I definitely take responsibility for making some
quite poor decisions in the band’s career.” >

Lynn Goldsmith

32 MOJO

WEATHER

Crowded House, 1988: (from
left) Neil Finn, Paul Hester, Nick
Seymour. “Your personality
can freeze when you become
successful,” says Finn, “you

can become self-absorbed.”

Getty (2), ы of Neil Finn, LFI/Avalon, ©Wendy McDougall

<< Thirty-five years since the release of their
debut album, Crowded House are once again a
going concern. Finn (63) and Seymour (62) have
released their seventh LP, Dreamers Are Waiting, and just
finished an actual tour of New Zealand. Any
hatchets, it is presumed, are long buried. Yet
across the cheeky chappies who once set the
question for a Saturday morning kids TV
competition as, "Which member of the band
isn't circumcised?", lies the shadow of a four-
decade history of bust-ups, lost friendships, and
drug dalliances, plus the much longer one cast
by the mental health struggles of Paul Hester and
bis shocking 2005 suicide.

No wonder Neil Finn fitted right in when he
joined Fleetwood Mac.

EIL FINN WAS JUST 19 WHEN HE WAS DRAFTED

into older brother Tim's art rock group Split Enz, 21

when his first solo songwriting contribution, 1980's I Got
You, gave Split Enz their only UK Top 20 hit. Two years later, they
were poised for a follow-up with Six Months In A Leaky Boat,
written by Tim about his nervous breakdown. Unfortunately, the
Falklands War broke out and it fell foul of a BBC blacklist banning
songs with naval connotations.

When Split Enz disbanded in 1984 no founding members
remained, leaving Neil fronting what he still considered to be his
brother's band. Crucially, however, a new drummer had arrived:
Melbourne-born Paul Hester. Even as Split Enz conducted their fare-
well tour of Australia, the pair were inventing their next band and, at
the final after-show party, bassist Nick Seymour ‘introduced’ himself.

“The story that I approached Neil at a party makes it souna like
I drunkenly accosted him, but it was a totally calculated move,’
Seymour. “I

? says
I admired Neil, thought he'd written some great songs,
and by hook or by crook I was going to work with this guy."
) ) going 5 guy
Finn, meanwhile, was vaguely aware of Seymour. “He was on the

34 MOJO

Having a Finn time: (this page, clockwise from top
left) Split Enz, 1980; Hester, Seymour and Finn in
New York; Seymour's sleeve artwork with a blind
drawn over Together Alone controversy; Finn on-
stage, Amsterdam, 1988; (opposite, top) Don’t
Dream It’s Over video shoot, Sydney, 1986; Neil
Finn enjoys some recreation with producer Youth.

fringes of the Melbourne scene, a very
gregarious, outgoing fellow — still is. Also a
bit of a smart arse.”

With the core trio complete, Finn and Hester
trod the globe in search of a record deal, eventually
signing to Capitol in America. With another guitarist,
Craig Hooper, in tow, they piled into a car and set out
on an Australian tour as The Mullanes, after Finn’s
middle name. For Finn, it was seat-of-the-pants
touring that he’d never experienced with Split Enz.

“At one gig, a big yacht club in Belmont, the car
park was full and we thought, ‘Finally, an audience!” says Finn.
“But there were three people in our room while downstairs was
packed for the biggest meat raffle in the Hunter Valley.”

Australia had never been the prize, however, and when the trio,
now minus Hooper, flew to Los Angeles to record their debut
album they were convinced this was the big time. Hester and
Seymour surfed cardboard boxes down the stairs of the band’s two-
bed rented apartment at 1902 N Sycamore Avenue — the titular
‘crowded house’ — and invited the neighbourhood back to party,
while Finn worked up songs with Mitchell Froom, a young Cana-
dian producer living in Los Feliz. Strumming acoustic guitar in
Froom’s back bedroom while the producer played synth bass and
B3 organ, Finn glimpsed soulful paths for his songs to explore. But
the early weeks in the studio were filled with wrong turns, and Finn
was starting to have a mini crisis.

“T was overthinking in my own angsty songwriter way,” he
explains. “Some of my very first songs became successful with Split
Enz, and your personality can freeze when you become successful,
you can stop maturing and become self-absorbed.”

The self-titled album's first three singles tanked in the US and
Capitol's interest waned. The band fell between stools: too pop for

alternative success and, it seemed, too quirky for the mainstream.
Attempting to fashion their own destiny, the band hit the road,
busking in restaurants, small radio stations, record company offices,
wherever they could stir some local interest. Eventually, the larger
stations took notice, as did Capitol's bigwigs.

"Those busking shows are where we really learned how to be a
band," says Finn, “how to let it all hang out and gather i it back up again.”

In the meantime, Don’t Dream Ie s Over was released as a single,
a last roll of the dice. Everyone liked it, but it didn't seem the kind
of song to break a new act. Too downbeat. Back in Australia for a
New Year's Eve gig supporting OMD, their manager called: Don't
Dream It's Over was Number 36 in the Billboard singles chart.

ON'T DREAM IT'S OVER CHANGED EVERYTHING.

Number 1 in Canada and New Zealand, it eventually hit

Number 2 in the US and Top 30 in the UK. After three
months gigging just to spark some interest, they now had a smash
hit and would spend much of the next 18 months on the road
around the world.

“One night, just before going on stage, the record company
asked us to phone every chart return store in America to thank
them for getting us to Number 3," Finn recalls with a disbelieving
chuckle. *I was too frazzled and refused, but hey, we didn't get to
Number 1, so maybe I was wrong."

Crowded House were about to learn how fleeting а рор moment
can be. Their more melancholy second album, Temple Of Low Men,
performed much less well than expected, and when an early version
of third album Woodface was rejected by Capitol, a rethink was in
order, Finn’s somewhat random solution was to sack Seymour. As
the bassist remembers it, there was no sugar coating: “He just told
me he didn’t want to be in a band with me any more."

A month later Seymour rang Finn and declared, “You know this
is stupid?" Finn agreed, and the bass player was reinstated. Looking
back, Finn admits the fault.

“Nick’s a really quirky player,” he says. “When he's working out

“I DEFINITELY TAKE
RESPONSIBILITY FOR
MAKING SOME QUITE

POOR DECISIONS IN
THE BAND'$ CAREER.”
NEIL FINN

a bass line he sometimes doesn’t play the same thing twice for two
weeks and I allowed that to become the focus of my own writing
angst. It’s not like we made any progress while he was gone.’

Meanwhile, Finn had been writing with his elder brother again,
penning an album’s worth of songs in just a few days. When Neil
asked if some of their co-writes might be used on Woodface, Tim,
self-admittedly envious of the success of Don’t Dream It’s Over,
had a half-joking proviso: yes, but only if he joined the band.

It was a bad idea. Over six years Crowded House had become a
unique live act that embraced chaos. The trio’s banter between
songs verged on improvisational comedy, the audience encouraged
to throw notes onto the stage that, if they took the band’s fancy,
might completely change the setlist or open a discussion on
modernist art. “We had an understanding, through years of busking
and rocking up anonymously at open mike nights, that if I did this,
then Paul would do that and Neil would do this,” Seymour says. It
was a tight, slick piece of musical farce that didn’t include Tim.

“Tim was a frontman,” Seymour continues, “and yet here he
was at the side playing keyboards during old songs he had no
connection with."

Eventually, as they waited to go on-stage at King Tut’s in Glasgow,
Neil suggested his older brother might be happier if he left.
Rumours suggested a dust-up high on the Gallagher Scale of broth-
erly spats, but Neil recalls nothing like that.

"There was, um, conversation and agreement, um, all actually
very polite," he says haltingly, *and, you know, if two people started
talking at the same time it was all, *No, after you. . ."

Ironically, Weather With You — one of the F inn/Finn co-writes
that saved Woodface — became a hit in February 1992, three months
after Tim left. Likewise, Crowded House's bookings in the UK
went from two nights at London's tiny Borderline in June '91, to
Wembley Arena exactly 12 months later. Once again, Tim had
missed sharing his brother's success.

OODFACE FLIPPED CROWDED HOUSE'S

career entirely. America wasn't listening any more, but

the band was now firmly established in Britain and
Europe. Having migrated to Capitol's UK sister label Parlophone,
Finn wanted to make a grown-up, statement album. The unlikely
producer would be ex-Killing Joke bassist Martin Glover, AKA
Youth, fresh from work with The Orb on ambient house trailblazer
Little Fluffy Clouds. The band, says Seymour, bonded with him over
"a big spliff and his record collection"

*We were aware of his connections with KLF and The Orb,"
explains Finn, "things that were right outside our sphere but had an
integrity we admired. We didn't want to make a record like The
Orb, but Youth was very singer-songwriter oriented as well. He
liked Cat Stevens as much as he liked hardcore trance."

Decamping to the black sand beaches that line the west coast of
New Zealand's North Island, they built a studio in a friend's house at
Karekare, the main location for Jane Campion's 1993 period drama
The Piano. A place of Maori myth, tribal genocide, emerald bush and
sublime yet treacherous surf; it's also criss-crossed with ley lines.
Youth's esoteric interests were pique od. “I was experimenting ‘heavily
with psychedelics and really into crystals at the time,” says the pro-
ducer today, “and this place was just brimming with magical energy.”

But the mix of London hippy raver and guitar pop band wasn’t
an easy one. Time was lost while Youth searched for >

MOJO 35

ልዘ the
rated by

“ ED- Z HOUSE!
уры

(Capitol, 1986)

Sparky debut, home to the
everlasting Don’t Dream It’s Over.
Alongside the jaunty pop of
Something So Strong and Now
Мете Getting Somewhere are songs
about suicide (Hole In The River) and
obsessive love (Love You ‘Til The
Day | Die), extremes that contain all
of Crowded House’s fizzing essence.

(Capitol, 1988)
Left alone by Capitol after the
success of Don’t Dream..., Finn’s
natural melancholy poured through
gems suchas Into Temptation,
Mansion Іп The Slums and Better Be
Home Soon. One US critic called it
“sanctimonious self-pity”, entirely
missing the point of the true fan's
deep-cut album.

(Capitol, 1991)

The CSN-like
Weather With
You's radio
ubiquity in 1992
cemented the
band’s future іп
the UKand
Europe, but Woodface is a messy
album. Half co-written with brother
Tim, Chocolate Cake and There
Goes God's goofiness sounds
uncomfortable alongside the
sublime Fall At Your Feet and Four
Seasons In One Day.

(Parlophone/Capitol, 1993)

Looser and almost psychedelic in
places, this is the band’s most

36 MOJO

albums,

cohesive statement. Log drummers
and a Maori choir lend a briny South
Pacific tang to several tracks, but the
more trad guitar pop of Distant Sun
is probably Finn’s songwriting
pinnacle, possibly even one of
humankind’s greatest musical
moments.

(Parlophone, 2007)

Agrab bag of styles from the
previous albums, the reunion album
is symbolic of Seymour and Finn’s
emotional struggle after Hester’s
suicide. Although mostly written
before his death, it’s impossible not
to read some prescience into lyrics
from Don't Stop Now, such as,
“something | can write about...
something І сап cry about”.

(Fantasy/Universal, 2010)

‘The quiet one’ of the catalogue,
but a fully collaborative album
between Finn, Seymour and
latter-day Housemate Mark Hart.
Bouncy pop and pillowy ballads
harked back to the old days, but
with the members now in their
fifties the themes were more
reflective, less visceral, more solo
McCartney than prime Beatles.

(ЕМІ/Опімегѕаі, 2021)

‚| Even with Finn's

| sons Elroy and

| Liamand former

| producer Mitchell
Froom now in the
~z band, this sounds
aùse| more like ‘classic’
Crowded House than either of the
previous reunion albums. Love and
family fillthe songs with guilt and
hope, the youngsters re-injecting
azing not heard since the debut.

<< a crystal he'd buried near a waterfall, while Finn complains of
"negative energy" and admits to dabbling with acid. He calls it a
*vocational rather than recreational" choi Youth, however,
claims it was something the band and crew embraced.

"There was a night, pitch black, where we went for a barefoot
walk down the track to the sea. I was in front, the others in a line
with their hands on the one in front's shoulder, and as we went I
started going faster and faster until we were all running through the
dark forest, unable to see a thing, laughing our heads off. Amazing
no one hit anything."

Seymour — whose marriage collapsed around the same time —
was unimpressed by some of Youth's actual production work. He
recalls Finn str uggling with a difficult vocal take, and asking for
feedback. The response: a light but unmistakable snoring coming

from a couch in the control room. “I asked why he was sleeping and

he just said, ‘I was tired, man.”
More surprising is Seymour’s grudge against Richard Thompson
a friend of Froom's who had contributed the Django Reinhardt-style
guitar solo on Temple Of Low Men’s Sister Madly. As with every
Crowded House album, Seymour had painted the sleeve artwork for
what was to be called Together Alone. This one was a triptych of
Christ, Buddha and Muhammad in a car. When Thompson, a mus-
lim since 1974, saw it, he objected in the strongest terms.

“We argued about religious censorship but he was completely
correct,” Seymour concedes. “Bearing in mind what рар ned at
Charlie Hebdo, good thing too. But saying he found me 'personally
offensive’ was a bit much." Seymour repainted the cover with a

curtain drawn across Muhammad's window.

OGETHER ALONE CATAPULTED CROWDED HOUSE

$, but it came at a cost. Hester had

to another

been struggling with depression for years, although his
bandmates were only now beginning to see how deep the problem
ran. He’d been increasingly unhappy during the recording of
Together Alone, keeping a distance that ev entually influenced the
album title. Halfway through their 1994 North American tour, just
before a show in Atlanta, the drummer quit.

“Everybody finds their breaking point,” Finn says today, “and
Paul had got into a spiral of too many days in strange midwest towr
We didn’t really understand what was happe ning with him, but in
some ways we were relieved that at least something had happened.”

“МУ LIFE CHANGED AFTER KNOWING

PAUL $0 CLOSELY. 1 HAD TO WORK
OLIT A LOT ABOUT THE HUMAN

CONDITION.”

TF,

Let’s busk agai
House do MTV's Unplugged, 1990,

with Tim Finn, far right; (above

left) Finn’s got soles, London 1991; =
(left) Paul Hester, 2000; (right,

from right) Crowded House today,

Nick Seymour, Elroy Finn, Mitchell
Froom, Neil and Liam Finn.

“Paul was expecting his first child,” adds Seymour, “and he was
possibly in the early stages of becoming agoraphobic. He talked
about not even wanting to leave the page of the [Melbourne street
atlas] Melways he lived on. His mood swings and vulnerability were
obviously enslaved to the band’s schedule of ever y day having to
look at Neil and me, and then act like nothing was wrong.”

The remaining pair finished the tour with Wally Ingram deputis-
ing for Hester, borrowed from support act Sheryl Crow. But for
Finn something fundamental shifted when his best friend left, and
when he and Seymour reconvened to work up new songs something
didn’t gel for the songwriter. If it was going to be different, it had to
be completely different.

Seymour, meanwhile, believed that with just one more album
they could be the biggest band in the world.
our contract with C apitol, I assumed we were going to sign to an-
other big label and we'd suddenly be quite financially independent,
recording a flagship album. Then Neil leaves. I waited a few weeks,
thinking he'd change his mind."

Finn's course was set, however. *It was definitely pulling the plug
on something, but I'm quite reactionary and restless by nature and
I thought it best to stop while there was something left in the tank."

On November 24, 1996, Crowded House's valedictory Farewell
To The World tour ended with a free concert on the steps of the
Sydney Opera House in front of 250,000 people. Rejoined by Hes-
ter for a final performance, the experience was bittersweet: their
biggest moment was also their last.

"The after-show for that wasn't great," says Finn ruefully.
"There was a big club hired and we all turned up, but no one was in
the mood to celebrate?”

Worse was to come.

N MARCH 26, 2005, PAUL HESTER WAS FOUND

hanged from a tree in Elsternwick Park, near his

Melbourne home, just 46. It was a decade since he’d
left Crowded House, but it still felt like losing a bandmate.

“When he left the group it was hard not to be aware that he was
in the middle of something very big,” says Finn. “We hadn’t seen
much of Paul but it was good when we did. He’d been my best
friend and it was deeply distressing.”

“My life has really changed after knowing Paul so closely and
dealing with the aftermath for his family and those that loved him,”

“We’d just got out of

NICK SEYMOUR

ጭ-

естек

ጩክ -

еу СМ €

: (far left) Crowded

Seymour confides. “I had to try and work out a lot about the human
condition and what ‘fragile’ means, but I never saw anything in him
as being that morbid, never thought that it was threatening in regard
of life and death.”

Hester’s death did, however, bring Finn and Seymour back

together. Already in the middle of recording a solo album, Finn
suggested Seymour come and play some bass. The songs had
been largely written before Hester’s death but the album, Time On
Earth, resonated in such a way it became a memorial to their fallen
Crowded Housemate. “Paul dying remains a deeply troubling
time,” Finn says. “Although there’d beet a full stop put on C rowded
House, we thought there was something more to be had or given to
the band as a soulful experience, something to commemorate. It
may be a strange reaction but it seemed right at the time.”

Since then, there has been another Crowded House album — the
seldom-spotted Intriguer in 2010 — solo Neil and Finn Brothers
projects, the Pajama Club record with Finn's wife Sharon, charity
album 7 Worlds Collide, featuring Johnny Marr, Eddie Vedder and
Radiohead's Phil Selway and Ed O'Brien, and 2018's Lightsleeper,
recorded with son Liam.

Then, two years ago, Finn was asked to replace Lindsey Bucking-
ham in Fleetwood Mac. Watching Mac fans respond to the band's
old songs, he started to think that maybe there was not only worth
in re-engaging with his own past, but creating а new present, too.
Reconvening Crowded House in LA just before lockdown, the now
five-piece (featuring Seymour, Finn's sons Liam on guitar and
drummer Elroy, and Mitchell Froom on keyboards) recorded
Dreamers Are Waiting, a lush and sure-footed album that nonetheless
sparkles with a joy and energy that recalls the band's debut.

“I don't know where it fits in the canon as such, that will

take time to figure out,” Finn says, “but this iteration of the band is
very exciting. »

Even though his sons have backed him in various solo permuta-
tions, Finn thought they might scoff at the idea of joining Crowded
House. Not for the first time in the group's story, he was wrong.

“I didn't understand why һе w: aited so long to ask," says Liam.
*Who other than Dad, Nick and Mitchell locns more about the

band than us? Maybe when he gives up we'll just carry on as a

family franchi:
*Ha!" barks Finn Sr at the idea.
Family Singers. Why the fuck not?"

*Who knows, though? The Finn

ወ

MOJO 57

Sci-fi, soul and self-belief
carried through
chaos at home in Portis-
head, to Nashville, where
Dan Auerbach and Sister
Rosetta Tharpe have
helped her connect with
the source, and where the
future is finally within
reach. “Just commit and
that shit is yours,"
she tells :

Photography by JIM HERRINGTON

PE e ты
= መማ
ምቺ: -

LS iE ==

IU
p

EERING AT THE HIPSTERS AROUND THE SWIMMING POOL AT THE DIVE MOTEL,
a refashioned 1950s-era motor lodge in east Nashville, Yola looks like a visiting Romulan ambas-
sador. The bright May day illuminates her green, yellow and black striped dress, lavender-tinged
tresses and two angular slashes of electric green eye shadow. As we step into one of the hotel's
kitschy rooms for our interview, it turns out that the topic of Star Trek is not only a quick path to
the 37-year-old singer's heart, but a good frame for understanding her music.
“1 grew up on Star Trek: Next Gen,” she says. “I just love the Data character, his relationship
with everyone and the quest for what is humanity and human nature. Science fiction and art ask the big questions."

And it turns out that sci-fi has a bearing Yola's new album, Stand For Myself.

"It's written from the point of view of an ‘other’,” she says. “In this particular case, not an android, but a black
lady. Someone who maybe their humanity isn't seen clearly and needs to tell some stories about that humanity for
people to understand the lens through which they live."

The stories on her second full-length record match themes of feminine strength and longing for connection with
widescreen arrangements that surround her controlled-fire vocals (“Му restraint might be a British thing," she says)
with a summery collage of classic vibes — from Motown '65 to doo wop to lush countrypolitan — or what Yola calls
"de-genred pop".

“What I do sits on the nexus of a number of aesthetics,” she explains, with professorial flair. “Think of Minnie
Riperton. How do you categorise something like Les Fleurs? It's not straight-up soul, not psych-jazz. Randy
Newman is the same way. So many streams run through his music. That's what I want to do. My aim is for people to
go, ‘Oh, that's Yola-like,’ in the same way they'd say, “That’s Randy Newman-like.””

rrington, With thanks to The Dive Motel, Nashville, TN

music as a latchkey kid who loved ’90s radio. Raised by a single mother in Portishead, near Bristol, she sang 2

T HAT’S VERY MUCH IN KEEPING WITH HOW YOUNG YOLANDA QUARTEY EXPERIENCED
along with Brownstone and A Tribe Called Quest as easily as she did Pulp and Blur. But it was a pair of > 5

38 MOJO

Yola at The Dive Motel,
Nashville, May 12, 2021, on
the road to self-actualisation:
“I'm going to learn something
in every environment that I’m
in, then use that to identify
the things that I’m born to.” .

Jim Herrington, Getty (5)

<< vintage LPs that helped unlock her voice.

"There was a compilation album of Ella
Fitzgerald, and I sang my way from top to bot-
tom," she says, in an accent more southern
English than West Country. *I can still sing the
whole record in sequence, to this day. It was so
playful. Ella had surprising amounts of gravel
for someone that was smooth. When you hear
her sing Sunshine Of Your Love with a big band,
it's just sublime."

'The other record was Aretha Franklin's
1972 epic, Young, Gifted And Black. “That was so important,” she
says, “because I'd never heard a record addressed to me before so
specifically, growing up in England where black people are even
more of a minority."

Music was also her escape from a difficult home situation. *My
mother had all the traits of a clinical psychopath, bar the actual
murder list," Yola says. *That did exist, but she just never did it
(laughs). She’d sleep with a gun under her pillow. She was ready to
go, you know? I didn't have the luxury of time to just have this kid's
life. I had to friggin' snap the fuck out of it, day one, and be on.
Having to develop a little quicker, you get the ability to be able to
think on your feet."

By the time she was 14, Yola had her first gig, singing standards
with a jazz band in Bristol. It was the start of a de de анаа Яе
apprenticeship that found her top-lining for London DJs, touring
with broken beats collective Bugz In The Attic and, in 2008, front-
ing fellow Bristolians Massive Attack.

“No matter what I was involved in, I always kept something back
for the eventuality of doing my own thing,” she says. “I would think,
‘OK, I’m going to learn something’ in every environment that I find
myself in, then I'll use that to identify the things that I’m born to.’

She refrained from putting her name to a solo project, despite
many offers. “It’s easy to get hoodwinked into doing something that
doesn’t represent musically what you want to put forward,” she says.

Massive Attack is a prime example. Listening to live clips of her
sing lead with the band, you can hear her dialling down her vocal
wattage to a polite whisper. “They’re minimalists. Everyone knows

40 MOJO

Standing for herself: (clockwise from top left) Yolanda
Quartey with Phantom Limb, December 2011; The Dive
Motel, Nashville, May 2021; with Smokey Robinson

at the 62nd Grammys, LA, January 2020; her albums;
on-stage at Glastonbury with Massive Attack, 2008;
(opposite, main) in Amsterdam, November 12, 2019; (insets)
Sister Rosetta Tharpe; with Dan Auerbach, Nashville, 2019.

minimalism is a big part of their aesthetic and what
makes their music beautiful. But if you listen to my
records, you might notice, I’m a maximalist! (laughs)”

It should be noted that Yola’s laugh is also maximal

—an aisle-rolling blast of bawdy mirth that she freely
unleashes. It’s the laugh of someone who’s come out the other side
of some dark times — in her case, a brief spell of homelessness, a
house fire, and two interludes where she stopped singing.

“The first hiatus, for a year and a half, was forced, because of
having vocal nodes,” she says. “The second, my mother was dying.”

The latter break allowed her to recalibrate her path forward.
“The time with my mother gave me a line in the sand. I thought,
‘Tve got to put the jetpack on and live my best life!’ It's hard to go
out on your own and use none of the contacts you ever had and find
an environment that’s going to allow you, as a black woman in
England, to self-actualise.”

N 2010, YOLA VISITED NASHVILLE FOR THE FIRST
time, and it was love at first collaboration. “It’s been a magic
place for me,” she says. “A mix of socialising and work, and
serendipitous bumping into people on the street that spark
different conversations.”

Her publisher was sending her on regular writing trips to Los
Angeles and New York, to network and plant seeds for a solo
recording career. While the bigger cities allowed her to work with
big names, including Katy Perry, it was Nashville that won her over.

“In LA, I found it hard to feel like I was ever in something. New
York, I definitely felt like I was in something, but it’s almost too much
of something (laughs). The balance is in Nashville, where you're in
something, but there's space and perspective to see what you're in."

After briefly fronting UK Americana band Phantom Limb (416
was a bit too bro," she says), she started writing with Dan Auerbach.

The Black Keys' frontman produced her
2019 solo debut, Walk Through Fire,
enlisting an all-star team of session cats
and legends of soul songcraft such as
John Bettis and Dan Penn. Even in such
exalted company, Auerbach was eager
for Yola to assert her personality.

*With some of the co-writes, it was
almost like Dan wanted to see my face
more,” she says with a laugh. “But T'dbe
like, ‘Buddy, are you kidding me?!”

For Stand For Myself, they assembled
a larger — and younger — pool of collab-
orators, including Jack White backing
singer Ruby Amanfu and neo-soft
rocker Aaron Lee Tasjan, whose recent
Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan! long-player was
championed by Elton John. “There
were things that I could talk about more

easily,” says Yola. The result was songs
that touched on isolation and difficult
family dynamics, while effervescent lead
single Diamond Studded Shoes may be
the chooglin’est song about economic
divisions we’ll hear in 2021.

“It’s important to be in spaces where
there’s more than one woman, where
there’s more than one person of colour,
where there are people from different
backgrounds and sexual persuasions,”
Yola says. “You have people delivering
their understanding of otherness. That
added so much richness to the record.”

As did Yola’s first major extracurric-
ular project, playing Sister Rosetta
Tharpe in Baz Luhrmann’s upcoming
Elvis biopic, untitled as MOJO went to
press. “First, I thought it would just be

“SHE'S UNAFRAID TO
TELL

Producer and Black Key Dan
Auerbach on the wonder of Yola.

“WE FIRST metin a co-writing session. | was immedi-
ately impressed with her voice and the ease with which
we were able tocome up with songs together. She’s
unafraid to tell her story and get personal. She’s very
instinctual. Sometimes, with ап artist, you run into a
bunch of traffic, like something's holding them back.
With Yola, it’s always forward momentum.

“The big change for this album is that she went
from not really touring to making a living touring.
Naturally, you start to want to have songs that play to
bigger rooms - more uptempo, dance-y things. She's
greatin the studio. I've never worked with a singer
who knewso much about her vocal cords (laughs).
Also, |havea lot of vintage gear at Easy Eye, which
complements the timeless thing she does. We
recorded during the pandemic, but it was еа5у-
tested every morning, and kept itto three or four
people in the building at a time. Looking ahead, I'll
always be here to aid Yola in whatever capacity she
needs from me. That's what my job is. Step in when
Ineedto, step out when І need to. Sofar things һауе
been going swimmingly."

AstoldtoBill DeMain

I DIDN'T HAVE
THE LUXURY
OF THIS KID'S
LIFE."

really powerful to represent a creator of
says Yola. "And that
was like, no pressure, right? (laughs) But

rock'n'roll music,"

it was transformative almost for the
opposite reason that I expected. Not for
what it's saying to the world, but what it
said to me as an artist of colour."

Yola's career quandary — where to go
after a well-received debut that could
nonetheless have defined her limits as
a retro-soul stylist — was challenged by
her brush with Thar ре.

"This role said you can keep on
growing, you can be the genesis of
something massive," she says. "Just
commit and that shit is yours. I felt
imbued with that when it came time to
do this record. I felt like Га been
immersed not only in the birth of
rock'n'roll but in the definition of self-
actualisation."

There's that word again. When
MOJO jokes that she must be the first
soul singer ever to reference Abraham
Maslow more often Aretha, Yola
laughs. “Self-actualisation is important!
Because, you know... what else are we
doing here on this planet?" [M]

MOJO 41

ccept
people’s point of view
on my music... as long as
it coincides with mine.”

БЕР) ҰЯ | Mey, | OOO OA SS
2222 MM Ac Ac А AS ill Ze
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Tearaway Teddy Boy to prog-hating progger in
rock's least predictable band: firebrand
ROGER CHBHAPERAB о
damn the torpedoes. Not the safest career strategy,
but one that means he rocks stoically on, 60-odd
. years since he started. “I cant switch my mind

off from creating,’ he tells.
o RIEHABE PUPEARD.
25 VOR

fa ASTER MONDAY, APRIL 17, 1960. AS PART OF THE LOCAL BANK
AS holiday amusement, the Palais De Danse on Humberstone Gate in Leicester is
holding an afternoon hop. Coming on stage are Palais regulars The Rockin’ Rs,
| regarded as one of the city’s best rock’n’roll outfits, scrappy but authentic, with an
intense frontman, 18 years old for just over a week: Roger Chapman. Chapman has
already established a reputation for tearing through Little Richard, Gene Vincent
and Fats Domino numbers in blue suede brothel-creepers and a long black drape
jacket, occasioning one outraged fellow performer to complain to the Palais’ pro-
moter about his hiring “a dirty old Ted... with a voice like a cheese grater”.

Galvanised by Fats Domino’ 's Blue Monday aged 14, Chapman began his audio odyssey di
to the humid New Orleans grooves that jazz players brought to the early R&B records, grooves which
bubbled up in Memphis behind Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash. When he sang these songs,
he just let it all out, his timing and tuning naturally good, his tone raw and loud. He impressed at
local talent contests, until a punter asked] him to join his band, which became The Rockin’ Rs.

Home was a mess, Chapman's father having left before he was two (Roger and older brother Tony
had spells in care). Off-stage, he hung with a tough crowd led by Tex (Terence) Brown and Dougie
Wilcox, two notorious Leicester Teds who, at weekends, would lead sorties to the surrounding >
villages to duff up their teenaged inhabitants: football hooliganism without the football. ሙ 2

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44 MOJO

<< “It was egos on a Friday and Satur-

day night and then on Sunday everybody
calmed down and went to the cinema
with a bird," recalls Chapman. *I became
the junior division of these older louts.
Except they weren't really louts,
they were really intelligent people
stuck in an environment they

couldn't get out of."

Тех” gang introduced Chap-
man to Hank Williams and rock- — Шү
abilly and encouraged him to |
twitch around on-stage like a rope
made entirely of nerve. By this East-
er Monday, however, the young singer
has started to let the Ted look slide, try-

g
winkle-pickers, tasty gear purchased
from Weaver

ing Italian tailoring, mohair jackets and

To Wearer in Leicester's
town centre. As he heads for the stage,
he is beckoned over by someone. The
guy whispers in his ear. Chapman looks
dazed as he wanders out in front of the
crowd. “Er, I don't know if this is true or
not, but I just heard that Eddie Cochran
has been killed in a car crash. This is for him."
The Rockin’ R's tear into C'Mon Everybody.

UST A FEW MONTHS LATER,

Chapman is himself involved in a road

accident. Unbelted in the back seat,
the force of the crash rockets him up into
the car's roof, crushing his neck, cracking
several vertebrae and dislocating his spine.
Luckily, his spinal cord is not severed, but he
has to endure almost two years of hospital
visits and operations. For some time he is
encased from head-to-waist in a cast, his
face peeking out of a plaster-of-Paris port-
hole, like a diver's helmet. But being a teenager, he wants to con-
tinue going out and having a good time. Others might have feared
ridicule, but as wingman to some of the hardest nuts in Leicester,
Chapman thinks little of it. Indeed, during another night at the Palais
he is persuaded to take the stage once again. Thus the crowd wit-
nesses what looks like the ghost of an undersea explorer hollering
Ray Charles's What'd I Say as if nothing were amiss.

"That's the music that really got me, that kind of R&B," says
Chapman, 61 years on, still betrothed to rock music and just about
to release a new album. “It still sounds really happening to me. Just
fantastic stuff."

Leaving school at 15, Chapman, a bright, creative kid, wanted to
attend art school. *But they said I couldn't, stuck a paint pot in my
hand and told me to be a decorator,”
they did that to me has stuck with me for over 60 years."

he says. ^I hated that. The way

(Top left) Chapman on-stage in 1966; (above, from left) first
Family, 1967, Charlie Whitney, Harry Ovenall, Chapman, Ric
Grech and Jim King; (insets left) inspiring Fats, first single,
Family albums; (opposite page, from left) Roger the roar
prepares to lob the mikestand, Alexandra Palace, 1973; Family
on the Old Grey Whistle Test, 1971 (from left) John Wetton,
Whitney, Chapman, Rob Townsend, John ‘Poli’ Palmer.

At 19, getting his 17-year-old girlfriend pregnant
meant a shotgun: wedding and a life mapped out like a
kitchen-sink tragedy: But the ር car accident had generated
some insurance money, £2,000 — twice the average annual
salary then — held in trust until he turned 21. Thus, on his
21st birthday, April 8, 1963, Chapman announced he
wouldn't be clocking on any more but would be turning pro
asa musician. He joined local band The Strollers, among them teen
bassist Ric Grech, and turned them into The X-Citers, drawinga set
from songs by Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and the music coming
out on UK import label, Sue. This made The X-Citers one of the
most forward-facing bands in Leicester, if not the country, and
Chapman was soon spotted by a resourceful manager, Reg Calvert,
who invited The X-Citers to join his stable of all the talents — The
Fortunes, Screaming Lord Sutch — housed at Clifton Hall, a former
stately home near Rugby. Chapman was renamed Jimmy Stephens
and his band became The Jackpots.

T DIDN’T TAKE LONG FOR CHAPMAN TO REALISE THAT
the packaged-pop life wasn't for him and that Calvert was the
only one likely to benefit from the whole charade. (Calvert was
shot dead in 1966 in a dispute with a rival pirate radio entrepre-

neur). He retreated back to Leicester where Ric Grech had joined

James King And The Farinas, who impressed Chapman with their
homespun arrangements of Motown and R&B songs. Grech
thought Chapman should join. Quirky frontman Jim King wanted
to de elop his sax playing, so a deal was struck whereby С һартап
could join if he bought a sax and taught himself to play. He and King
would join together for brass riffs and then take turns singing.

The band was good and London beckoned. They changed their
name to The Roaring Sixties and adopted a kind of 40s | gangster
look, wearing second-hand demob suits. Turning up dressed this
way ata recording session with producer Kim F ‘owley, the American
said they looked like “the I ‘amily”, meaning the Mafia. The others
thought that would be a better name for the band. C hapman
thought it was a stupid idea, but The Family they became.

The band’s new manager, John Gilbert, hustled them a deal with
Liberty for one single, Scene Through The Eye Of A Lens, released
in October 1967. Gilbert also made the unusual management deci-
sion to initiate Chapman and King into LSD by slipping a tab in a
bottle of champagne at a trendy Italian restaurant. “John was quite
scared of me because I could be firm. Let's put it that way: not ag-
gressive, firm," says Chapman. “1 didn't agree with people telling
me what to do. May be the acid was his way of softening me up a bit
so he could order me about!”

Subsequently, Motown and mohair were out and multicoloured
threads and joss-sticks were in, an overnight revamp of the stage act
which briefly confused hometown fans but made Family prime can-
didates for gigs at London's ‘underground’ venues. They quickly
became a name to drop. Beatles and Stones came to watch them
play. That reaction enabled Gilbert to score Family a very lucrative
worldwide deal with American label Reprise.

With the same carefree spirit that he’d brought to his singing
from the start, Chapman started improvising words over the com-
plex chord sequences brought to him by double-necked guitarist
John ‘Charlie’ Whitney. “We just did it quite naturally,’ ” recalls
Chapman. “Some of the guys were influenced by jazz, me ‘mainly by
rock. It just came together. I can’t say we ever tried to be anything

or do anything. We just wrote these songs, and did them the way we
liked them.”

On Family's debut album, July 1968's Music In A Doll’s House they
were playing to the gallery of the underground circuit, but second
album Family Entertainment, released nine months later, was some-
thing else, a thoroughly original mash-up of their origins, with
(2 hapman writing lyrics about life's tapestry on future hit singe" Ihe
Weaver's Answer, complete with jazzy sax solo and Leslie-d guitars.
One of Ric Grech's songs asked whether Chinese communist leader
Zhou Enlai ever got high. Charlie Whitney wrote an evocative instru-
mental harking back to the Summer Of '67 and Processions, a song
about a kid building sandcastles and dreaming of his future. But the
band were annoyed. when Gilbert mixed the record while they toured
and credited himself as co- producer (with Glyn Johns). C hapman
particularly disliked the chirping woodwinds on Hung Up Down,
even though they'd been arranged by an uncredited John Barry.

PART FROM MAKING A NOISE AND SEEING IF
anyone liked it, there was barely any logic to Family's plan.
For a start, Chapman: s voice was like no other in rock. Vari-
ously described as “hircine”, “eye-watering”, “unforgettable” and
“quite extraordinary to be in a room with”, its considerable volume,
sandpapered tone and emphatic vibrato was strong meat in this
time before heavy metal. Furthermore, his street Қ-н dened side
emerged in an electrifying stage act, thumping and splintering hap-
less tambourines, destroying mikestands and generally losing himself
in his work. It got the band a reputation for being a wild night out.
Ric Grech wondered aloud in the press as they prepared to visit the
US for the first time, in April 1969: “I worry that [the Americans]
are going to flip when they see Roger on-stage, 'ር05 he’s so violent.”
That American tour was not a success. Soon after they arrived,
the band were informed that Grech had been poached by Eric Clap-
ton and Steve Winwood for their new supergroup, Blind Faith. For-
mer Animals man John Weider was hastily drafted in. Chapman’s
performing style, possibly exacerbated by his frustration at the sud-
den рег sonnel change, did indeed freak out some crowds and >>

MOJO 45

MUSIC IN A DOLLS HOUSE

(Reprise, 1968)

A Brit-psych classic, establishing the
bandasunusual, inventive writers
andtheirsingerasaone-off who
could do sinister, stirring or soulful
asthefancy took him. Comes with
strings arranged by a young Mike
Batt (his first gig) and a cameo from
Britjazz legend Tubby Hayes.

FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT
እ]

(Reprise, 1969)

Opening with the meandering
folk-jazz of The Weaver's Answer,
some argue this record is the
birthplace of progressive rock, such
isthe invention and vision on show
in unusual songs by Chapman,
Whitney and soon-to-depart bass,
violinand voice man Ric Grech, each
trackbang on trend and trying
something new with theform.

Family portrait, 1968
(from left) Chapman,
Whitney, King (seated),
Townsend, Grech.

(Reprise, 1972)

Still refusing to do
what's expected,
Family find their
best-ever filthy
groove in hit
single Burlesque,
sound oddly like
theirfollowers Genesis on Corona-
tion, write an acoustic classicin My
Friend The Sun, and close оп а career
high with Top Of The Hill. Their label
dropped them soon after its release.

(Vertigo, 1976)

Chapman and
Whitney join
forces with world
class players
Bobby Tench, Jon
Plotel and Nicko
McBrain, for
tight-but-loose rock with added
swamp:theloping Me And MeHorse
And Me Rum; added boogie: Daddy
Rolling Stone; or added strings:the
widescreen Decadence Code. A
confident album as unclassifiable as
anything Family ever recorded.

(Acrobat, 1979)

Guided by
producer David
Courtney,
Chapman andtop
| f session players
deliver a lighter,
Бие 22: Ёз more focused and
accessible workthan usual, including
hisown bluesy staple Moth To A
Flame and standards picked to show
offhis soulful chops - Tim Hardin's
evergreen Hang On To A Dream and
Leiber & Stoller's Keep Forgettin’. Its
success abroad means he's been
pointing that way ever since.

critics. It also summoned the hair-triggered wrath of promoter
Bill Graham who, watching from the wings at the Fillmore West,
was nearly taken out by a mikestand that Chapman carelessly jave-
linned off stage. Despite subsequent lengthy tours supporting Elton
John, where significant numbers of Family fans showed up at the
coastal gigs, ihe band never managed to crack America.

It was a different story at home. For instance, it was አመመ
thought that they blew the Stones off stage at Hyde Park in July *6
“That wasn’t hard,” reckons Chapman today, bursting into w ZY
laughter. Firmly established at the centre of the London scene, Chap-
man shared a Fulham flat with roommates Jenny Fabian, a young
journalist whose controversial novel, Groupie, was known to be based
on Family’s backstage exploits, and Sam Hutt, a rising rock’n’roll
doctor later to become UK country singer Hank Wangford.

By late ’69, Jim King was becoming ever more unpredictable,
succumbing to a drug habit that made him increasingly hard to ac-
commodate. Keyboard, flute and vibraphone player, John ‘Poli’
Palmer, former drummer with Blossom Toes, was invited to replace
King, having impressed Family while making a guest appearance
with, them at the Royal Festival Hall. Third album A Song For Me, was
released in January 1970, while a remix of fan favourite The Weaver's
Answer drove the three- -song Strange Band maxi-single to Number
11 in the charts that August. There was some mumbling about Family
selling out. Chapman agrees ‘selling out’ is a concept that is irrele-
vant today. “It was probably irrelevant then, too. To us anyway. You
had to make money to keep a band together.

Despite constant line-up instability. — John Weider was let go af-
ter fourth album Anyway and replaced by melodic young bass player
and singer, John Wetton — F. amily seemed to be ascending into the
premier league. The 1971 Melody Maker Readers Poll put them in
the company of Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Who and Pink
Floyd, one place above the Stones. Chapman was voted Britain’s
third best singer, just below Robert Plant and Joe Cocker. In the
music press, Family were considered prime exponents of progressive
rock because their songs could go anywhere — loud, quiet, mellow,
heavy or humorous — but the tag y didn't mean much to the band.

“То Бе honest, we were never progressive, as it has come (о be
known," says Chapman, “But there were so many avenues to go
down. We could be anything from Thelonious Monk to Joni Mitch-
ell, and everything in between."

Rousing single In My Own Time climbed to Number 4. Excel-
lent, extravagantly packaged albums Fearless and Bandstand kept
them in the charts, But while similarly tough to categorise acts like
Jethro Tull were becoming household names ar aud the world,

Family had to be content with reasonable success at home and in
parts of E urope. When they appeared in Italy, visiting surrealist

Salvador Dali was photographed holding a gig poster 360 urging
people to go and see them.

Chapman says he never resented the more visible successes of his
peers. *Good luck to anybody who can make it in this profession.
It's a difficult life for young musicians, just to get through all the
people who are waiting there with their claws out, you know? We
didn't have the drive to be fucking giants, anyway. We only had the
drive to make music. In some ways ‘that’ s derogatory y, but in others
it’s really quite admirable. My drive is alw ays to beat whoever’s try-
ing to stop me from doing s something. ዖ

` Atatime when many bands w оша: go out for £350 a night, Family
were asking £1,000, and filling the venues. Lack of ambiton wasn’t
holding them back, but there may have been too much living in the
moment: “When we went out as Family we were usually stoned out
of our brains, at least two of us completely and utterly fucking
gone,” says C hapman.

Bandstand contained Burlesque, their most accessible rocker in
a while and a hit single. Yet somehow this supposedly progressive
band weren’t getting anywhere. Indeed, they were being leap-
frogged by younger bands they'd influenced, like Genesis and
Queen. John Wetton left to join King y Crimson and was replaced by
future Rod Stewart sidekick Jim Cregan. Poli Palmer also bowed
out, feeling he was drifting apart fom the others and that they’d
done all they could together. He was replaced by boozy, barrelhouse

Alamy, Getty, EDE Trott

Old songs, new songs:
Chapman on-stage with
Family in Copenhagen,
Denmark, 1969; (below)
Roger now; with new LP.

piano man ‘Tony Ashton. It was like swapping
caviar for mince and onions.

“That’s exactly right,” says Chapman,
laughing. “By that point we were thinking,
Let’s just get someone who can stand on the
stage, play his arse off and make the band
groove. We were heading in a kind of New
Orleans direc tion, doing Huey ‘Piano’ Smith
covers in our set."

Family's contract with Reprise wasn't
renewed. Ashton produced 1973's It's Only A
Movie for new label Raft. Yes it gr ooved, here
and there, but their new, Faces-style goodtime
sound wasn't firing anyone's imagination. “It
didn't take too long for it to bedome really
boring," Chapman admits today. “We became
like a fucking pub band. It wasn't inventive any more.
That's when I said, I've had enough of this."

AMILY PLAYED A FAREWELL TOUR THAT

ended, naturally, with two emotional shows in

Leicester. Chapman and Whitney launched new
band Streetwalkers aiming, it seemed, at the kind of
macho, R&B-based rock Paul Rodgers’ new band Bad
Company would use to fill тайт. Streetwalkers
did indeed thrive in places which had ignore ed Family, but as Chap-
man puts it, his homeland “gave me the arse” ‚ Four years in, punk
and new wave hastened Streetw alkers' end. After 12 years together,
Chapman and Whitney finally called it quits.

Chapman remembers being i in a bad place for about 18 months
after Streetwalkers ended, giving short shrift to several record com-
panies who approached him to be another Rod Stewart. But a day
helping out former Love Affair singer Steve Ellis introduced him to
producer Dave Courtney, which led to a solo album, 1979's Chappo,
and a solid career mostly focused on Germany, Australia and those

corners of the world where old school, blues-
derived rock is still appreciated, a focus Chapman
pursues to this day, despite several farewell gigs in
the last decade. “Гуе had quite a few of those," he
laughs. *But what else am I going to do? Sit at
home all day and do nothing? I can't switch my
mind off from cr eating. Pm alw ays writing songs.”

His new album has reunited him with Poli

almer. The former Family vibes man produced
Life In The Pond between his home studio in Mal-
vern and visits to Chapman in Sheen, south-west

London. Chapman enjoyed the process and is

clearly thrilled with the result. Amazingly, at 79,

his voice is holding up, though it's perhaps not

quite as huge as it once was. *When I was
= young, I had 300 per cent. Now, it's down to
about 90 per cent," he reckons.

Palmer, who has known Chapman for over
60 years, shared a flat with him for several of
those and joined Family primarily because he
loved his singing, knows that music still means

2%; ንም © the world to his old mate.
ዝረ oM. | (
2 à ШЫ.

“Underneath it all, Roger’s an old softie,”
he says affectionately. “But he admits it himself,
if he hadn't joined a band he'd have ended up in jail. He'd have been
a lost soul without music. Discovering American blues was a life-
saver to him. He's not going to stop doing it now."

Chapman, meanwhile, harbours no illusions about his place in
the music universe or his reasons for continuing. “1 don't profess to
be a fucking star. I just get on a stage and sing things I like. I'm not
Ta it fora anybody else. I’m selfish like that.”

e pauses. “I will accept other people’s point of view on my
E .. As long as it coincides with mine!”
The wheezy laugh says the rest. C’mon everybody. [M]

MOJO 47

VIOLENT
FEMMES
BLISTER IN
THE SUN

Alive from 1981, Milwaukee’s naive
folk-punks exulted in Sun Ra-

inspired theatrics while playing መ
high school hotshot Gordon
Gano's songs of sex and
longing. After a happy
busking encounter with

the Pretenders, their 1983
debut album blew minds
апа found cult acclaim.
But internal frictions,
plus the influence of
Jesus and murder
ballads ор гооїѕу
second LP Hallowed
Ground, were looming.
“They had that free-
jazz, wild energy,” 567 „9
say the band and 2E,
their intimates. Ж;
“But selfishness was х Н р,
coming to ahead.” ©

,
4
У",

Interviews by MARTIN ASTON 4
Portrait by PAUL NATKIN * #7

Kinky Aggro: Violent Femmes
cavort outside Tuts venue,
Chicago, June 30, 1983 (from
left) Gordon Gano, Victor
DeLorenzo, Brian Ritchie.

E Y

Victor DeLorenzo: Brian [Ritchie,
bassist] and | were working as a
rhythm section, which Brian had
named Violent Femmes, backing
various Milwaukee musicians.

Brian Ritchie: | was a first-genera-
tion punk but I'd played in a big
band at school, then jazz, polka and
neo-psychedelia, which seems weird
butitfamiliarised me with alot of
different styles. One guy we backed
was areal railway hobo, Doorway
Dave. Victor wastouring with a
theatre group in Europe when |
met Gordon. A friend said І had to
check out this “pint-sized Lou Reed
imitator” who wrote his own songs.

Gordon Gano: My father played
guitar and sang, sometimes country
songs, and given he was a Baptist
minister, there were church songs
too. My brother got me into punk and
the Velvets. When | was 15, he took
meto see Johnny Thunders and

The Heartbreakers, still the greatest
rock'n'roll experience of my life.

BR: Gordon was amazing. He
had lots of energy and was pretty
out there, especially fora high
school student.

GG: At high school, | was considered
peculiar. People wanted to beat
me up, but didn't. | was shy, >

MOJO 49

System Of A Dressing Gown:
clockwise from main (from
left) Ritchie, DeLorenzo and
Gano play on the streets

in Chicago; backstage іп

"84 with saxman Peter
Balestrieri (right); Gano

and Ritchie on-stage; the
Hallowed Ground and Violent
Femmes long-players.

< combined witha willingness to
stand out. | started wearing a bathrobe
over my clothes to school every
Monday, like, “You got me out of bed
for this?” But I also liked sport and
going to church.

VDL: Coming from The Velvet
Underground and other esoterica
in jazzand country, | appreciated
theuniqueness of Gordon's writing,
aboutthe adolescent condition,

in a clear-cut, emotional way. It
wasn't autobiographical, but he let
you into little secrets. | think we kept
the jewels [sic] of our personalities
hidden, which led to problems later
on, but initially it made for a quirky
collection of individuals.

BR: We practised in Victor's basement,
and rarely saw sunlight, sol wanted to
take it out on the street, as Victor and |
had done with Doorway Dave, and we
convinced Gordon totry it. Playing
acoustically too was better for the
music, because it let out Gordon’s
refined lyrics and excellent storytelling.

GG: I'd have probably gone for two
electric guitars, bass and drums, but
Brian and Victor brought in different
kinds of instruments and a way of
playing that was essential to how the
band sounded..

VDL: I'd studied drums with a
contemporary of Buddy Rich, who
taught methe beauty of playing with
brushes. After | met Brian, | adapted my
style to play standing up. | soon added
what called the Tranceophone, a com-
bined metal basket and а floor tom,
with a "ping" and a "thump" amongst
its distinctive sounds. But getting
shows was hard - clubs in Milwaukee
were geared toward hair metal.

Paul Natkin/Getty, Getty, David Carol/Retna/Avalon (2), Avalon (2), Courtesy John Kruth

50 MOJO

Gordon Gano
(singer/guitarist)

4
М ኻ
ў.
he
Brian Ritchie
(bassist)

ሰ

Victor DeLorenzo
(drummer)

Mark Van Hecke
(producer)

Peter Balestrieri
(saxophonist)

John Kruth
(multi-instrumen-
talist associate of
the band)

Geoff Travis
(Rough Trade label
founder)

VDL: Brian had this giant Mariachi bass
and had my snare. One afternoon, we
busked under the marquee of the
Oriental Theatre where the Pretenders
were playing [August 23, 1981].

GG: [Guitarist] James Honeyman-Scott
had gone out to the drugstore and
heard us. Chrissie Hynde said we could
play a few songs between the support
actand them.

VDL: Depends on who youask, we
went down very well, or horribly.
Half the audience, anyway, had seen
us busking and probably thought,
“Hey, these weird psychedelic
farmers, purveyors of folk-punk, are
legit now!” But the next day, we were
still busking.

Peter Balestrieri: | was working at The
Jazz Gallery club in Milwaukee, where
Violent Femmes really began, on
Tuesday nights when there were no
jazz bookings. The thing | noticed was
the crowd were all women, on their
feet, mouthing every word. never
really understood it, except that the
band had an androgynous look.
Gordon and Vincent had a habit of
wearing their mother's accessories,
like long gloves or a fox stole, and
Brian wore long drop earrings. They
were hammy and theatrical, talking

to each other and goofing around.

John Kruth: | was living in New York
City. A friend from Milwaukee called
and said, “You gotta see this band,
they'll wipe you out." | hadn't seen a
band like that since The Who or The
Doors, in that you just didn't know
what would happen. A riot could have
broken out, or people would be having
sex. Afterwards, | told Brian! played
mandolin, banjo, flute and harmonica,

and the next night | was on-stage at Columbia
University with them. They had that free jazz,
wild energy about them.

GG: I had no familiarity with jazz and improvisa-
tion until | met Brian and Victor. Victor would
tell me to see someone like Art Blakey, Sun Ra
became a huge influence on us, from the spirit
of improv to staging a total show, marching in
through the audience or leaving that way.

PB: The band asked if I'd jam with them оп sax.
After their road manager said he'd never tour
with them again, | became road manager too.
They each had very strong personalities, which
clashed a lot. But the magic of their shows would
overcome whatever was going on. And they'd
play long setstoo, 90 minutes or more.

Mark Van Hecke: Victor was ап actor with
Theatre X, an experimental theatre company
that | wrote music for. He always asked me to
hear his bands. The first three with Brian were
bad! But saw Violent Femmes, ina laundromat
basement, and really enjoyed it. It was almost
a performance piece, but with these nifty, quirky
songs, not too far off Elvis Costello's approach.
lasked them if they wanted to recordademo
in my back bedroom studio: they recorded
Waiting For The Bus, Kiss Off and what became
their signature song, Blister In The Sun. Travelling
to LAand New York for work, | dropped off
cassettes to labels, but no one responded.
| said we should record an album, for posterity,
[of] this ragtag band that played on street
corners, quite confrontationally, blasting
away on their acoustic instruments as people
were buying their groceries, and hopefully
teenagers for generations would get off
onthese songs.

VDL: We borrowed $10,000 from my father and
made the album at the old Playboy club that had
become a studio [in July 1982]. Each new session,
another piece of gear was missing. We later
foundoutthatthe studio was going bust, hence
the gear being sold, and the engineer was in fact

WROTE HIS BEST SONGS
WHEN HE WAS A VIRGIN!”

the janitor. He's got to be the only janitor with a
platinum record to his credit.

GG: The album reached Alan Betrock at New York
Rocker [magazine], who managed to get us two
gigs. One was opening for Richard Hell & The
Voidoids at The Bottom Line. The New York Times
ran a review and that led to Slash signing us.
They were the only label to say we didn’t need
to re-record anything, or pick certain songs.

| have to give Brian credit, because he said,
“We have all these different songs, let's not go all
over the place, let's keep it more of a rock album.”
In any case, Brian especially was down on my
gospel songs, and didn't want to record them.

JK: Nobody was paying attention to lyrics at that
time, but Gordon's just stood out.| mean, "Why
can’t| get just one fuck?” "What do | have to do,
to prove my love to you?" This little pipsqueak,
giving it everything he had, driven further by this
maniac rhythm section. Brian told me, "Gordon
wrote his best songs when he was a virgin!"

PB: Eventually, the girls brought their boyfriends
tothe shows, and the audiences just kept
growing. College radio played the living hell out
ofthealbum [released April 1983], and Slash
worked their asses offto promote it.

Geoff Travis: Slash licensed the album to Rough
Trade for the UK. It was an amazing, original
record, using the punk template of freedom and
adventurousness but turned on its head, similar
to the way The Modern Lovers did. There was а
skiffle-y sound, but not retro, like Blister In The
Sun, an all-time classic with an all-time classic riff.

GG: Blister In The Sun was actually written fora
woman |'] met at a poetry reading. She wanted
to forma band like The Plasmatics, and maybe I'd
play guitar, and | wanted a song I could offer. But
the rehearsal got cancelled and | never heard
from her again. | hear she joined a cult and
moved to Canada.

JK: [June 1984's second album] Hallowed Ground
was a very different experience to the first album,

‘GORDON

more American roots
music, like Country
Death Song and It's Gonna
Rain, which was gospel. The
first album blew the door
open energy-wise, but
Hallowed Ground showed
Gordon really developing.

BR: Hallowed Ground was
one ofthefirst albums in
what we now call Americana.
But we weren't coming from
arevivalist standpoint. We
didn't sound like Muddy Waters.

VDL: Gordon'sreligious side cameto thefore
then. Coming from a theatrical background, | was
used to controversial material, but Brian was a
bona fide atheist.

MVH: The band were in trouble. Gordon was
being stand-offish, and just wanted to be with his
girlfriend. Brian, who was a difficult personality,
was demeaning to the others. He said to Gordon,
“How can you be doing all these sex-type songs
and yet you're totally religious? | don't get it!"

GG: Brian changed his mind about the gospel
stuff because it appealed from a punk-contrarian
perspective – to play a Sunday-school song in a
punk club. Some people who loved the first album
didn'tlove Hallowed Ground because they didn't
like country, jazz, gospel and Christian lyrics.

GT: | remember being disturbed by some of
Gordon's lyrics, the brute aggressiveness of the
sentiments. But | also accepted that it was the
point of them.

JK: Asong like Black Girls pushed buttons for
people, but Gordon liked black girls and they
liked him - he ended up marrying one. Gordon
always addressed taboos; that was part of what
was great about his writing, and you had to think
about who you were.

GG: It neveroccurred to methat Country Death
Song [man kills his family before hanging

himself] was risky. It's like
atraditional ballad, a form
that goes back hundreds

of years. Black Girls got
negative feedback too, but
the lyrics are so stupid and
crazy that it works. We’d
have quit playing Black Girls
live, butit lets us stretch out
and improvise, and
audiences love it.

VDL: When we started
making money, we began
touring as an electric and acoustic unit. | liked
change; | didn't want to be known for just one
thing... [but] we all had completely compart-
mentalised conceptions about what the music
should be. Gordon wanted to concentrate more
on country and Brian was getting fed up with
limited chord structures. But selfishness was
coming to a head. | left in 1993.

PB:Some say Victor was let go. You can always
finda better musician, but Victor's playing had
helped get them where they did. Violent
Femmes weren't about being professional like
that, butas they played bigger places, theirfans
replaced those who were drawn to the chaos of
the early days.

GG: For along time, there was a lot of negativity,
to the point of being sued [by Ritchie in 2007,
when Gano licensed Blister In The Sun to Wendy's
Hamburgers]. It doesn't feel like that any more,
though it took 40 years! Brian and l are still
together. Violent Femmes might not be the
same band as when we started, but we're still
doing something special.

ВВ: I'm proud ofthe way Violent Femmes staked
out our own turf, and that nobody to this day
sounds similar to us, or that anyone influenced by
us has surpassed us. Not many bands who've
been around for 40 years can say that. [M]

Violent Femmes best-of Add It Up (1981—1993) is
reissued by Craft Recordings.

MOJO 51

ice
ano
fire

pin-up, muse, lover, junkie, goddess - the legend of NICO
has been defined by those who would deny her creative agency.
inthis extract from her new book, jennifer otter bickerdike
reveals nico the artist, born of a bitter split from the velvet
underground and a fateful fling with the doors’ jim morrison, and forged
in the crucible of her extraordinary second album, the marble index.

portrait by guy webster.

HRISTA PAFFGEN’S LIFE WAS EXTRAORDINARY FROM THE START. BORN ON OCTOBER

16, 1938 in Cologne, Germany, she spent time in a brutal orphanage. After the war, which claimed the

life of her father, Willi, she moved with her mother Grete to Berlin, where the daughter's unusual

height and razor cheekbones gained her entry to the fashion world. Soon she was the star of striking

covers of Elle and Vogue magazines, and photographer Herbert Tobias suggested a name change: Nico.

After a role in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita made her an icon at 22, and affairs with Alain Delon

— resulting in the birth of a son, Ari, in August 1962 — and Bob Dylan, a pattern established: Nico, seemingly aloof,

coldly beautiful, would be constantly chased, a prize to be won but not always cherished. Falling in with Andy

Warhol's Factory set in New York, she was recruited to front The Velvet Underground. But as we join her in mid-1967,
the alliance is crumbling and a Nico solo album — Chelsea Girl — in a baroque folk style with songs by various Velvets, |
Dylan and her sometime accompanist, Jackson Browne — is in the can. Meanwhile, Warhol’s most celebrated art 2
movie yet, Chelsea Girls, also features Nico — the jewel in his crown of so-called ‘Superstars’.
But Nico is chafing at the pigeonholes that her mentors are constructing, and struggling ፳

M Archi

Child of the moon:

Nico during the to find ways to support her ailing mother, sequestered in Ibiza, while Ari’s future — bohemian 2
sover shoot for globetrotting with Nico, or settled in Paris with Delon’s mother Edith Boulogne — is in 5
Los Angeles, 1968. dispute. And Nico is about to meet someone who will turn everything upside-down... 295

MOJO 53

This year’s model: Nico оп a 1960 Paris fashion shoot; (ri
on-set filming La Dolce Vita with director Federico Fe

and co-star Marcello Mastroianni; (insets, below) the Elle and
Woman’s Own cover star; Factory products: Andy Warhol’s
Fuck; Nico sings with The Velvet Undergound; Chelsea Girls.

HERE ARE TWO VERSIONS OF THE
circumstances that brought Nico and

Jim Morrison together. Morrison had
already seen the chanteuse perform with
the Velvets at their ? May 1966 show at The Trip in Los Angeles,
though they did not connect properly until the following year.
Morrison’ s Doors bandmate, drummer John Densmore,
thought that it was in March 1967 when the duo first met. The
band was in New York and could not help but notice the
20-foot-high Nico posters pasted up all over Manhattan.

“We were staying at the dumpy Great Northern Hotel on
57th Street
place smelled of old people. I was rooming right next to Jim,

,” recalled Densmore. “Convenient location, but the
አጋ ж
which turned out to be better than TV. Jim brought Nico back >

to his hotel room, and I'd never heard such crashing around. It
Е АЛ, CARRICK ТЕАТР

ወ Now ANDY WARHOL

sounded as if they were beating the shit out —

ANDY WARHOL
PRESENTS ws

Nico ሰ

SINGING TO THE SOUNDS OF
The Velvet

Undergrou
АТ THE UNDERGROUND BAR AT ነ

THE NEW
MOD-DOM

777210

of each other. І was worried but never

dared to ask what happened. Nico looked
OK the next day, so I let it slide."

'The more well-known account of how
the two icons first met places the timeline
as June or July 1967. After the Monterey
Pop Festival, Nico decided to go back to

the Castle, the gothic musicians’ haunt in

Los Feliz that had harboured the Velvets,
| 22 sr. MARICS PLACE

T маем іа CR

Атмлию® RIT Y ፻፪6፪፻፣ її

Dylan and others. It was here that Danny
Fields — working for The Doors' label
Elektra and Nico's friend since 1963 — decided to
play cupid. “I had a little electric light bulb in my head.
I said, ‘Say, Jim, I’m staying with Edie Sedgwick and
Nico, up in the Һ I thought I would bring him up
there, and then he would fall in love with Nico.”

Fields recalled what happened when he and Morri-

nages, Alamy

son arrived at the Castle: “We finally got up to the house
and Nico was standing in the doorway. He just looked
at her, and she looked at him, and then they both cast
their glances downward. They stared at some imaginary
‚ spot on the floor in between them. This was some kind

(4), Вгійдетаі

Gett

of thing they were acting out. I came back about an hour

54 MOJO

HOW TO
MANAGE
YOUR MAN later; they were still in the exact
they

. they hadn’t said any thing. This

same positions, hadn’t
moved..

was their way of ac -knowledging ‘You’ re

Sus

a beautiful, special person,’ I suppose.”
After an evening of heavy drug con-
sumption by Morrison, Nico, Sedgwick
and himself, Fields eventually fell asleep,
only to be awoken by the sound of Nico
sobbing. Rushing to ‘his window, he saw
“Jim and Nico standing there under the
full moon in the courtyard. Jim was pull-
ing Nico’s hair and she was screaming. He

። ።
never said anything. He just kept pulling
) g 8
her hair. Suddenly he ran into the house
and left Nico weeping in her deep voice.
Next thing I know, Morrison is completely
naked, walking along the edge of the crenelated roof.
8 £ 8

Nico came flying into my room crying,
to kill me!
Leave me alone, I’m trying to sleep.

*He's going

I said, “Не? not going to kill anyone.

i»

Nico's affair with Morri ison would prove volatile
and intense. But unlike her former beaus, Morrison
encouraged Nico to write her own music. *He was
the first man I was in love with, because he was
affectionate to my looks and my mind," Nico
later remarked. *He told me to write songs.
I never thought that I could."

Morrison suggested that Nico begin writing
down her dreams and to read Céline, Blake and
Coleridge. Not long after, she composed her
first song, Lawns Of Dawns.

At other times, the pair would drive, alone,
from Los Angeles into the outlying desert, gath-
ering peyote.
Nico remembered

*We had visions in the eset

. “It is like William Blake; ከር
would see visions like Blake did, angels in trees,
he would see these, and so would I. And Jim
showed me that this is what a poet does."

"he was the first man i was in love with.
he told me to write songs. i never thought
that i could." nico on Jin ri

All tomorrow’s parties: with The Velvet
Underground (from left) Nico, Sterling
Morrison, Maureen Tucker, Lou Reed,
John Cale, Los Angeles, 1966; (above
right, clockwise) Jim Morrison, 1968;
Nico performs her debut single I’m Not
Sayin’ on Ready Steady Go!, 1965; at
Monterey Pop with Brian Jones, 1967.

ORRISON HAD ALSO PERSUADED NICO THAT SHE

could play an instrument; she just needed to find one that

suited her. Following his advice, she bought a harmonium
in San Francisco while on a promo jaunt for Chelsea Girls, and took
it back to Manhattan with her. “She would practise it for hours,
simple things, chords — really annoying stuff,” recalled flatmate and
fellow Factory ‘Superstar’ Viva. “She was very serious about it,
dreadfully serious, like a Nazi organist. She’ d pull the curtains
across and light candles around her and do this funereal singing all
day long. It was like I was living in a funeral parlour.”

By October, Nico felt ready to make a public appearance as a
solo artist. Seven nights were booked for her at New York club The
Scene, a venue she had grac ed before with the Velvets. Chelsea Girl
was about to come out, and The Village Voice featured ads for the
gigs and the new album. A picture of a blonde, glum Nico accompa-
nied the album ad, with the text, *The moon goddess Nico will
conduct services nightly at Steve Paul's The Scene leading you in all
your splendour with her liturgical chants." The opening act was
Californian folk rock band Kaleidoscope. Attendees included the
Warhol crowd and The Mothers Of Invention.

"There was only an organ on-stage, and she sat down at it and
there was one spotlight on | her,” Danny Fields recalled. “It was like
a child discovering a musical instrument for the first time. She
would just press one note and bend her ear toward the keyboard
and listen to it, and press it again and again, and then another note,
and she’d listen to that. She did this for half an hour, then she tried
a few combinations of notes and got into that.”

Yet the moon goddess’s noodling around was not appreciated by
a majority of the crowd, as “people were starting to file out quietly,
except for about 12 of us who were just mesmerised, transfixed by
the whole performance. She finally performed two chants and it
was over. It was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.”

Kaleidoscope’s Chris Darrow remembered it differently. “Nico’s
delivery of her material was very flat, deadpan, and አለ
and she played as though all of her songs were dirges,” he related in
Jonathan Eisen's essay г collection, The Age Of Rock 2. *However,
what happened next is what sticks in my mind the most. ep between
sets, Frank Zappa got up from his seat and walked up on the stage and
sat behind Nico's organ. He proceeded to place his hands indiscrim-

inately on the keyboard in an atonal fashion and screamed at the top
of his lungs, doing a caricature of Nico's set. The words to his im-
promptu song were the names of vegetables like broccoli, cabbage,
asparagus... This ‘song’ kept going for about a minute or so and then
suddenly stopped. He walked off the stage and the show moved on. It

was one of the greatest pieces of rock'n'roll theatre I have ever seen!”

HEN CHELSEA GIRL CAME OUT IN OCTOBER 1967,
it was a commercial flop, more so than The Velvet Under-
ground & Nico, though Nico said in later interviews it was
the only one of her solo LPs to earn any income. “I like the [cover]
picture, even if it looks sad," she told journalist Kurt Lassen in
November '67. “Sometimes I’m sad and mostly I like sad songs...
when I sing I try to imagine I’m all alone, there's nobody out there
listening. I play with the notes, with the feeling. People tell me that the
album is good and that it is selling well. I honestly don’t think it is tig
best I can do. That's why I’m wor rking on another one, a better опе.”
Promotional efforts once again focused mainly on her looks. In
a radio advertisement, sent by MGM/Verve to FM stations (and
later included on a promo- only edition of the record), a voice
booms, “Nico is beautiful, and in a world where so much can be so
easily possessed on a whim, over a promise, she's unpossessable."
Nico rounded out 1967 with a cameo in another Warhol project,
titled ‘the 24-hour-movie’, then ‘FUCK’, before becoming ****,

or Four Star for simplicity. Its premiere on December 15 and 16
was a 25-hour marathon showcasing all 30 sections of the film, with
the longest part — The Imitation Of Christ, starring Nico — clocking
in at an eye-watering eight hours. One portion featured shots of the
docks and streets of Sausalito, California. As flickering images play
across the screen, Nico provides a dreamy, whimsical narration:

“А тап is walking on the sea.

The sea is walking.

The sea is after me.

The night grows into the sky.

The light grows back into the earth.”

But Nico had already had enough of Warhol's movies. In a 1979
5
interview with Kristine McKenna, she said, “I’ve never much >

MOJO 55

<< cared for them because I’ve always been in
. The way he'd always
come around and want to film me, whether I felt

opposition to his ideas. .

like it or not — he was a rapist."

The last event of 1967 to include The Velvet
Underground and Nico working in some capacity
together came before the end. p" the year, with
the launch party of The Velvet Undergr ound
Untitled or Index on Decem-
ber 14 at 457 Madison Ave-
nue in New York. The project
consisted of an oversized
book, packed with irreverent
and unexpected formatting,
that perfectly showcases War-
hol’s multimedia aesthetic.
Part of the package is an ‘un-
recorded song’ — almost five
minutes of conversation
taped at the Factory between
Nico, Lou Reed and others
while they look at copies of Index as The Velvet
Underground & Nico plays in the background.

Nico is heard randomly singing the chorus of
y singing

The Beatles' Good Morning, Good Morning.
She sounds zoned out, not completely present.
It was one of her few documented appearances
that December. Though Chelsea Girl had been
out for only a short time, she was visibly absent
during the promotional rounds. Ап article from
the December 2 issue of Cashbox magazine de-
clared, “Elektra’s Danny Fields is in something
ofa quandary at the moment as he's been trying
to get in touch with Nico and meeting with no
success," adding, *Danny says that she's not at
her old castle any longer. Danny's problem is
that he's running out of castles."

Nico's spaced-out audio on Index, com-
bined with her apparent disappearance, were
symptoms of an increasing problem: her
dependency on heroin.

ICO WAS NO STRANGER TO DRUGS

before joining The Velvet Underground.

As a model, she had
often used diet pills to curb
her appetite and help main-
tain a svelte figure. “She
used to say how there used
to be lots of speed, lots of
amphetamine to keep [the
models] thin; they were al-
ways handing that out,” says
her biographer and '80s
musical collaborator James
But the double
standard applied to male

р
? Young.

and female drug users cannot be overstated. For
many male addicts, substance abuse is part of
the artistic package and can even lend a level of
credibility. The label of ‘junkie’ sticks to women,
: whereas it often seems to bounce off men.

Still, Nico's fall from recreational user into

© addiction was a “quick turn", says her longtime friend Clive Crocker.
“T tried to dissuade her, but she was into heroin...

her onto it...

Nico's son Ari — then five years old — thinks there is a correlation
; between him going to live permanently with the Delon family and
: his mother’s dependency "She started to take more drugs because
of this adoption thing," he says. *That made her very sad. ‘Child’s

56 MOJO

"Andy Warhol

I know who put
but I can’t tell you that name because he’s still alive.”

winter
50105

nico's '60s albums,

Jann

)
*****
The Velvet
Underground
& Nico
(Verve, 1967)
While the Velvets
would quickly
resent Andy
Warhol for foisting
Nico on them, it’s impossible to
imagine the band’s epochal debut
without the extra chill, shadow
and unAmerican otherness she
brought to it. And beyond all its
other qualities, All
Tomorrow’s Parties’
meld of baroque and
drones would provide
a path for all Nico’s
best subsequent work.

Nico
*х*х*

Chelsea Girl

(Verve, 1967)

She would disown the
arrangements

(especially the flutes)

but there’s nota lot

wrong with her solo debut: good
songs (especially Jackson Browne's
These Days, debuting here, and
Dylan's l'Il Keep It With Mine);
tasteful orchestrations; plus Nico’s
inimitable graveyard tones, at their
lugubrious best on Tim Hardin’s
Eulogy To Lenny Bruce.

ЖЖЖЖ
The Marble Index
(Elektra, 1968)
Nico’s voice comes
into its own on her
bestsoloLP - espe-
cially commanding
onthe spooky
Frozen Warnings
-while John Cale
provides horror-folk
backing. Mark
Lanegan puts it best
inane-mailto
MOJO: “It has more іп common with
Sylvia Plath than any rock music. It
pre-dates the goth music it inspired

by over a decade and existsina
space all its own. Truly timeless.”

the whole Warhol crowd,”

thief’

It’s 1

fered

the ex

anoth

— that’s how she

called my grandmother.

ike her

soul had

been stabbed.”
Heroin may have of-

Nico a way out of
pectations of others

as well as relief from yet

er persona she had

created in her attempts to
overhaul her image. Her
£

switch of musical styles, from folky Chelsea Girl

to creator of her own music,

came with an

equally dramatic shift in appearance. Gone were

the eyebrow-skimming ban

gs and the multiple

pairs of fake eyelashes ador ning heavily lined

lids. Her blonde mane was replaced by red locks

that progressed to flowing

brown hair. Floaty

black — always black — capes and robes in

weighty fabrics replaced tailored white suits.

“She was terr ifying in her a
Danny Fields,

ustere beauty,” said

“which she didn’t want. She really

was girlish, in a nice way. She just liked to laugh.”

Now living with Warhol's new business man-

ager, Fred Hughes, in an apartment on East 16th

Street, Nico took long,

candle-lit baths and

practised the harmonium. It was the first time

she’d felt the music was her
use her own experiences, ic

s and that she could

eas and feelings for
g

inspiration. When asked where the lyrical con-

tent came from, she said, “It has to do with my

going to Berlin in 1946 wh
and seeing the entire city c

en I was a little girl
estroyed. I like the

fallen empire, the image of the fallen empire."

Having crafted the songs

for the new album,

Nico now needed a record

tery, but she was so worried — ‘But I want them to know my songs."
Fields was perfectly placed to bolster Nico's career. At Elektra,
he had access to label president, Jac Holzman. *

abel that would put

them out. She turned to Fields for help. *She was so afraid," he
said. “She knew that she had this great beauty and this great mys-

“Danny Was close to

said Holzman. *One day, he brought
Nico in. I knew who Nico was, and she brought in her little harmo-

Harmonium mundi
at Le Bataclan, Paris,
1971; (left) in 1967;

(right, above) with John
Cale at CBGB, New York,
1979; (below) with
Stooges roadie John
Adams (left) and

Iggy Pop ina promo
film for The Marble
Index, 1968.

nium; she sat, and she played.
Was it off the wall? Unbelievably
so. But so what?”

“Jac has wonderful taste,”
Fields would remember, “and
I kinda knew that he would see
through the legend, the myth, и
the beauty, the goddess. I don't 2
think һе wante d to fuck her. Jac

simply recognised good songs — that was the

THE 8IOG

essence of Elektra."

It took three sessions in May of 1968, at Elek-
tra Studios at 962 North La Cienega Boulevard in
Los Angeles, to cut The Marble Index, with Frazier
Mohawk listed as producer. But Fields gives
Nico's former bandmate, John Cale, credit for
shaping the album into its other-worldly form.

"The songs were already in Nico's head," Cale
said later. Yet his contribution as collaborator,

arranger and uncredited co-producer was indel-

he said,

ible. *Before I did Index I didn't know I could arrange,"
"but then I got lucky and found a very strong personality like Nico
who threw me against the wall and I had to come and bounce back."

The process wasn't easy because, says Cale, the two would fight
at *every opportunity". Each song was a separate challenge: the
harmonium was not an instrument ever truly in tune. Cale added a
variety of elements to the mix, including glockenspiel, bells, mouth
organ and bosun's pipe, electric viola, piano, bass and guitar.

With recording over, Cale kicked the singer out of the studio,
locking the door behind her. Two days later, he let Nico back in to
hear the final results. “You’ve got to remember that on those solo
albums she was really in pain," he reflected. "Afterwards she'd burst
into tears of gratitude. It's that whole thing of self-loathing and the
discovery of her personality.” The final album clocked in at just 30
minutes. Producer Mohawk later said the LP’s length was inten-
tional, as “that’s all I could listen to. After it was бей, we genu-
inely thought people might kill themselves. The Marble Index isn't a
record you listen to. It's a hole you fall into."

N JUNE 3, 1968, VALERIE SOLANAS SHOT ANDY
Warhol. Factory insider David Croland remembers getting
the news of the attack. *I was with Nico and Susan

[Bottomly, AKA International Velvet] at my apartment on 71st

YOU АВЕ BEAUTITUL AND YOU ARE ALONE

SRAPHY OF NICO

"on those solo albums she was really in pain.
it’s that whole thing of self-loathing and the
discovery of her personality." john cale

Street. The phone rang, and it was Viva
Superstar. She said that Andy had been shot.
We were alla little freaked out. I said to Susan
and Nico, *We're going to the hospital to see
Andy. We don't know if he's going to live or
die.' Nico did not want to. She said, *No,
we're not. We're going to stay here because
they're shooting Superstars possibly.’ We just
stayed in my apartment with the lights off
and the candles burning, until we heard from
Viva that Andy was alive and would possibly
pull through."

Terribly shaken by Warhol's brush with
death, Nico wrote a new song for him called
The Falconer. She did not think the people
around him had taken the shooting seriously.

Physically, if not mentally, recovered, War-
hol and Elektra Records held the premiere of
The Marble Index at the Factory on September
19. The evening promised a “playing of the
album" to start *promptly at 8.40pm", with
“wine, supper and dancing to follow". On the
night, Nico told a reporter that the album was "like a movie. It has all
the senses and it is in my line." Asked if she thought it would succeed,
she replied, ‘ ‘Of course. There’ s very little good music around.”

But on its release The Marble Index proved to be so different to
any other album of the time that even critics seemed confused
about how to classify or describe it. “I can’t make out a
single real word,” said NME’s reviewer. Danny Fields tried
hard to help Nico in any way he could, though she did not
have formal management or a booking agent to organise
concerts. In his memoir, Follow The Music, Jac Holzman
recalled, *She'd call up and, in her low moan, tell you, ‘PI
be in on Tuesday, set up some interviews.' Tuesday would
come, and no Nico. Eight months later, she'd call again.
‘Tm back in town.’ You would say, "What about those other
times?’ ‘Oh, I couldn't do those, I had to go to Rome.""

Even if Nico had been enthused and dependable during
the album's promotional cycle, in all likelihood it would still
have experienced low sales figures. “It’s an artefact, not a
commercial commodity," explained John Cale in a 1977

interview with Sounds. *You can't sell suicide."

ET THE MARBLE INDEX ENDURED - ITS CULT KEPT
alive by a small coterie of fans: Joe Boyd, who would bring Nico
to Reprise for her third album, Desertshore; Marc Almond, who
would feature Nico on his fourth solo album, The Stars We Are. Out
of it, John Cale got the job of producing the debut by a new Elektra
act, The Stooges. While the latter were in New York, Nico and Iggy
Pop — a fan of the Velvets and The Marble Index — were introduced
and the two began an affair. *My earliest memory of her is sitting
there with John Cale in the booth,” Pop tells me. “She would sit
there going, ‘Yaah, yaah, this is good... better than the Velvets.’”
Pop admired Nico's strength and her sophistication: “She was
like hanging out with a rock singer, like hanging out with a guy," he
told me, “except she had girl's parts. It was the only difference.
Otherwise, it was like a guy. A tough-minded, egotistical, artistic
kind of guy." However, it is Nico's artistry that has stuck with Pop.
"She was a great, great artist," he says. “It was just a real kick to be
around her. I'm absolutely convinced that some day, when people
have ears to hear her, in the same way that people have eyes to see a

ወ

p»

Van Gogh now, that people are gonna just go, *WHOOOAM!

Taken. from You Are Beautiful And You Are Alone: The Biography Of Nico by
Jennifer Otter Bickerdike, published by Faber on July 15, 2021.

MOJO 57

Songs from the South. Some others
from East Woodhay, Hampshire.
A sleeve that shocked in 1971.
A smash hit single that shocks more
today. Fifty years since the release of

‚ MOJO's writers and
friends - plus Marianne, and Bill - unzip
'most iconic album

and ask: Does it still taste so good?

Photograph:

HE MYTHOLOGY IS SEDUCTIVE. TUNES CUT ON THE LAM— THE
Rolling Stones “oiled up and running hot”, said guitarist Keith Richards
later — in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. One of them tested live, less than a
week later, at the Altamont Speedway show where the death knell of the
'605 rang. You couldn't make it up.
But this was December 1969, and only three songs — Brown Sugar,
Wild Horses, You Gotta Move — came out of that storied session. Before
it would finally emerge in April 1971, Sticky Fingers’ creation story would get far messier.
That the Stones survived 1970 at alli is remarkable enough. The extraction from man-
ager Allen Klein came with a monster bill for deferred tax. Negotiations to establish their
own record label under the umbrella of Ahmet Ertegun's Atlantic were necessarily discreet
and sporadic. Richards and his girlfriend Anita Pallenberg — parents to Marlon since August
1969 — were getting deeper into heroin. Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull, their “i
tionship crumbling, began the year in court, Jagger fined for possession of cannabis. He
would end the year a father for the first time, of Karis, by American actor-singer Marsha
Hunt. In between, three films featuring Jagger would premiere: the execrable Ned Kelly,
the pilloried Performance, and depressing Gimme Shelter, the Maysles brothers’ fly-on-
the-wall documentary of the Stones’ '69 US tour, including Altamont's scenes from hell.
Finishing up their contract with Decca/London, the Stones delivered a live album, Get
Yer Ya-Ya's Out!, and a single — Cocksucker Blues — they knew the label could not release.
Meanwhile, under the 2” the new Rolling Stones Mobile Recording Studio rolled up
to Jagger's as-yet unrenovated Stargroves pile near East Woodhay, Hampshire, and the
balance ofa new album took shape. Producer Jimmy Miller and engineers Glyn and Andy
Johns, plus house guests including Kenneth Anger and a new Jagger love interest, >-

©Peter Webb 1969

58 MOJO

v They got the blues: The Rolling Stones
E (from left) Charlie Watts, Keith Richards,

Bill Wyman, Mick Taylor and Mick Jagger

in photographer Peter Webb's studio,

1 Park Village East, London, summer 1969.

<< Bianca Pérez-Mora Macías, made the
best of the hastily jerry-built bedrooms.

It is testament to Jagger's ability to
glean some shape out of chaos that Sticky
Fingers coheres and expresses a character
all its own, one influenced for the first
time by incumbent lead guitarist Mick
Taylor — who looked, and played, like an
angel. As the testaments that follow un-
derline, the songs all dazzle in their own
way, whether born in the Deep South or
Home Counties (or, in the case of Sister
Morphine, in London and LA in 1968).
The packaging — Andy Warhol's zip-
crotch cover; John Pasche's lips logo, de-
buting here — defined and renewed the
Stones as the sexiest band in pop.

In March ’71, the Stones embarked оп
their “Farewell To England” tour, as it was
announced they would be emigrating to
France. In April, they signed formally with
Atlantic parent Kinney Services for an
unheard-of royalty of a dollar per album
sold, and Brown Sugar — shelved for 16
months — peaked at Number 1 in the US,

Number 2 in the UK. And on Я
о Mick нато Bianca: tune at Altamont may have cursed it

2 52 : with the legacy of that murderous

As with so many Stones night. But American rock and blues already lived
gambits before and since, Sticky under a pall of foundational violence, from the
Gold Coast slave ship to the market down in New
Orleans to the minstrel tent show, an institution
recent enough to have employed Little Richard.
The band’s most problematic song also,
somehow, comes across as their most fluent
1 piece of Americana.

So, we've gota racialised colonialist rape
fantasy, recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama - quite
near the beating heart of the country’s original

know it would make an arena jump
and shout. Some might think their
satanic majesties' live debut of the

Fingers seemed to say, ‘Crisis?
What crisis?’

Sticky Fingers’ hottest rock

is also a hot potato, writes sin, placing an imagined Black female body as a
Alison Fensterstock. stand-in for the American music the Stones loved
How do you untiea knot like B $ " and yearned to penetrate and own. It's nasty stuff,
Brown Sugar - for 50 years one of obby Gillespie still frequently in the live set, with lyrics edited
the Stones’ hottest rocks, even per Mick's whim. Does it still taste so good?

while its lyrical content and tone

rightly had even Mick squicked out as long ago
asa 1995 Rolling Stone interview, in which he
said, “I never would write that song now"? In her
2020 book Black Diamond Queens, the Black
American scholar Maureen Mahon uses the song
to investigate just what white British rockers
were so erect about, when it came to Black
American women's sexuality - and as well,
as an entry point to tell the stories of three
such women on the rock scene who
crossed paths with Mick Jagger,

but also hewed meaningful, if
undersung ones of their own.

The tune is Rosetta Stones: a
tough, driving hot slab of the blues
that inspired the band, captured at
the moment it also becomes hard dreamin’.” | mean, man, what an
rock as they defined awful place to be.

it,arrogantenoughto BOUTIGO rad The groove is amazing. It says
Bobby Gillespie (left)
and Patterson Hood.

Getin the swamp for some existential
rock’n’roll. Your guide: Bobby Gillespie.

(2), John Minihan/Getty Images, Getty, Sam Christmas, Jason Thrasher

Sway is like nothing else in the Stones’ oeuvre,
апа it’s unlike anything else in rock'n'roll.

I love Mick's lyric: “Did you ever wake up to
find/A day that broke up your mind/Destroyed
your notion of circular time.” Sometimes, Mick's
lyrics are kind of gestural. There’s an ironic
distance. But on Sway you get this real

sense of existential dread, like you get
with Rocks Off on Exile On Main St.:
“lonly get my rocks off when I'm

Alamy (2), © Alec Byrne-www.rpmarchives.com

60 MOJO

you're in the mire. It doesn't have
the propulsion of a Brown Sugar
or Bitch or Jumpin’ Jack Flash.
It’s almost Can-like in its inertia.
It’s like a swamp of sound - it's
moving but you're going
nowhere, andit really fits the
existentially stranded narrator.

And while the rest of the band are in the
swamp, Mick Taylor is up in the heavens. He adds
colours to the music, like Brian Jones did with his
marimbas and recorders and harpsichords, but
just with guitar. You get two Mick Taylor solos –
one with slide іп the middle and one without at
the end, and he brings a tenderness, a plaintive-
ness that | think encouraged Jagger to write
gentler songs.

The Stones were essentially a dance band. They
knew rock'n'roll had to be fun. But they took that
fun and joy and sexuality and still managed to put
in lyrics – like Sway, or Rocks Off — of existential
dread. |I mean, that's fucking difficult. Dylan tried
it for a while, and then he gave up. It was too hard!

Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood was five
when the Stones rocked upto his dad’s
workplace, and cut their most heartfelt song.

No band has ever released four albums in a row
more essential and perfect than The Rolling
Stones from Beggars Banquet through Exile On
Main St., but song for song, Sticky Fingers is my
vote for their greatest of all time. And my very
favourite song on the album, and a song that has
had such an impact on my life personally and
musically is Wild Horses. Plus it was recorded in
my hometown, in the studio my father, bass
player David Hood, co-owned.

aii

af ai Ld

It's a great song and a great story: how the
Stones on their November '69 tour said they
wanted to record in the South; how Memphis-
based writer Stanley Booth sounded out his
friend, session keyboardist Jim Dickinson. Jim
reached outto Stax butthere were two problems.
First, Staxowner Jim Stewart was on the outs
with Atlantic Records, who were in the process
of signing the Stones. Second, the Stones were
travelling with a visa that enabled them to perform
live but not to record, and Memphis being a
heavy union town, that was quite the obstacle.

The solution was Muscle Shoals, three hours
tothe southeast of Memphis, and already the
home of Rick Hall’s Fame studio, the launch pad
for instant soul classics including When A Man
Loves A Woman by Percy Sledge, | Never Loved A
Man (The Way | Love You) by Aretha Franklin and
Tell Mama by Etta James (my dad played bass on
that one). But Hall, too, was feuding with Atlantic,
so Dickinson turned to the five-month-old Muscle
Shoals Sound, a tiny former casket factory at 3614
N Jackson Highway - technically, in Sheffield.

Legends abound about whether Gram
Parsons actually co-wrote Wild Horses or just
influenced it. Clearly, Gram's version came out
first, on Burrito Deluxe, a whole year before Sticky
Fingers (and where it is credited to Jagger-
Richards). But for sure Mick and Keith finished
writing itin thetiny bathroom of Muscle Shoals
Sound and recorded it that same night. Also
for certain, itis beautiful, one of the fullest
expressions of regretful longing in popular

ТШ

pe
መ

You got to move: Jagger, Taylor, Richards
return to The Marquee, London, 1971; (inset
left) Keith with Anita Pallenberg and new
son Marlon, August 1969; (opposite page,
clockwise from far left) Sticky Fingers’
Warhol sleeve; mayhem and murder at
Altamont, December 6, 1969; Jagger’s
Stargroves pile; Richards and Jim Dickinson
listen to a Wild Horses playback at Muscle
Shoals Sound; MSS studio exterior.

music, whether the sentiments were
originally addressed to Keith's son
Marlon, or Gram's sister Avis - another
theory. And whether or not "Wild
horses couldn't drag me away" were
Marianne Faithfull's first words when
she came to in hospital after her suicide
attempt in Sydney in July.

Italso sounds wonderful - shonky and druggy
and late-night. Part of that sound is Dickinson,
playing piano in place of Stones keysman lan
Stewart, who baulked atthe song's minor key
("Lonly play the boogie woogie,” he told Jim,
pronouncing it with soft 'g's). The studio had just
hadtheir piano professionally tuned, except the
Stones always tuned to Keith, which in this case
was about a quarter step off from standard, just
enough to render the piano useless for the
session. Never one to give up easily, Jim
attempted to play along onthe Hammond B3
and Wurlitzer electric, thinking that perhaps he
could ‘bend’ the notes just enough to make it
work, to no avail.

There was, however, a beat up old piano in
the corner that no one used. It had tacks over the
pads giving it a ragtime sound that had been
used recently for a Boz Scaggs session. Sure
enough, Jim was able to find just enough notes
that were close enough to work and he
proceeded to do what he called his “best Floyd
Cramer impression”. He played along with the
take and the rest is history.

Wild Horses went on to be a US hit single in
June 71 and a classic, influencing artists across
thespectrum from country to rock'n'roll to
Americana, and remains one of my favourite
recordings of all time. Little Muscle Shoals Sound
would birth many huge records - by The Staple
Singers, Willie Nelson, Bobby Womack, Rod
Stewart, Traffic and a ton of other artists. My dad
played bass on all of those. >

МО)О 61

т, Scott Tsai

Estate Of Keith Morris/Getty, Robert Altman/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty, Getty (2), © Alec Byrne-www.rpmarchives.con

The Stones as jam band? John Mulvey
justsays yesto some "poodling about".

For all the performative sloppiness, The Rolling
Stones' career has been built more on calculation
than improvisation. An unflappable rhythm
section; an artillery of riffs; the pantomime
signifiers of rock'n'roll abandon - these have
sustained the Stones' greatness for so long,
ratherthan spontaneous musical innovation.
Can't You Hear Me Knocking, though (or at least
its second half), allows us a rare glimpse ofthe
Stones’ freestyle potential. It is, as was the way
of many things in 1971,ajam.

The Stones hardly seemed like natural allies
of jam bands at the turn of the ‘70s. “The Grateful
Dead is where everybody got it wrong,”

Keith Richards would reflect in 2015. “Just
poodling about for hours and hours. Jerry
Garcia, boring shit, man.” Nevertheless,
Can't You Hear Me Knocking betrays a
certain knowledge, especially of Santana's
Latin-tinged workouts. Santana had
opened for the Stones at Altamont,

afew months before the track was
recorded at Olympicin spring 1970. The
Grateful Dead, you'll recall, pulled out of
Altamont after Marty Balin was knocked
unconscious by a Hell's Angel during
Jefferson Airplane's set.

Twoand three-quarter minutes into
Can't You Hear Me Knocking, following
one of the most staccato attack strategies
in Richards’ portfolio, the track becomes
all about where the music сап go when
the riff ends. Perhaps significantly, the
jump is orchestrated by the other guysin
the room: Bobby Keys soloing on sax; Billy
Preston adding organ shade; Rocky Dijon
and Jimmy Miller rewiring the beat. The
key Stone here is Mick Taylor, his lines
clean and serpentine in the left channel
where Richards’ contributions in the right have
been choppy, ultra-distorted. In this mood one
suspects Taylor could poodle about, beautifully,
for hours and hours; indeed he showed up
on-stage to do just that with the Grateful Dead in
1988. Jagger meanwhile, after initially contribut-
ing to the mood of incremental hysteria by
pushing his vocals way high, is left twiddling his
thumbs. "We've never really done anything else
like it since,” he noted in 2015. “I’m always slightly
ambivalent about doing it [live], | guess because
Idon't do anything for the last five minutes.”

The Stones raid an old bluesman’s tune
bank. For once, they paid the piper,
reports David Fricke.

Fred McDowell was in his fifties, a farmer by trade
anda bluesman on weekends, when he made his

62 MOJO

recording debut in 1959,
taped at home in Como,
Mississippi by the folklorist
Alan Lomax. “This is early
blues as dance music,”
Lomax wrote, “with the slide
guitar going hell for leather.”
But it was McDowell's
searing way with a spiritual
- howthe guitar became
"another voice," Lomax said,
in “clean, steely melodic
figures" - that compelled The
Rolling Stones to cover his
treatment of You Gotta Move,
awell-travelled hymn, at
Muscle Shoals, just three
hours' drive from Como.
Jagger and Richards played
it almost every night on the
Stones’ ’69 US tour, in an
acoustic-duo sequence with

Going the moonlight mile:
the Stones say Farewell to
England, Colston Hall, Bristol
March ‘71; (far left) Billy
Preston; (left) mixing with
Jimmy Miller (seated,

Glyn Johns; (below) Bo

Keys; variations on a slee

Robert Wilkins’ Prodigal Son from
1968's Beggars Banquet and Robert
Johnson's Love In Vain, recently cut for
LetItBleed."Whenlwasinto Chuck,
Muddy andBo, wanted to know...
who turned them on,” Richards said in
2008 of the Stones’ late-'60s obsession
with Delta soul and mystery. In fact,
despite the age difference,
McDowell was a contempo-
rary who had recently
turned pro when he taped
You Gotta Moveforthe
Arhoolie label on July 5,
1965 - the same week the
Stones hit Number 1 in
America with (I Can't Get
No) Satisfaction.

At Muscle Shoals, the
Stones struggled to adapt
McDowell's solitary call to

Judgement Day asa
group. But over nearly
two dozen takes, gritty
perfection was “created
out of chaos,” wrote
eyewitness Stanley

Booth. Richards swapped

the National steel guitar
he used on-stage for an
acoustic 12-string;
drummer Charlie Watts
and guitarist Mick Taylor
worked around the
melody; and bassist Bill

Wyman got behind an electric piano. During
a playback, Richards told Booth, "The new
album's underway."

McDowell died a year after Sticky Fingers
came out, in July, 1972, aged 66. He lived long
enough for Arhoolie's Chris Strachwitz to visit
him in Como to deliver the biggest royalty
cheque the singer had ever seen, thanks to the
Stones. But, Strachwitz recalled, McDowell was
"more delighted knowing that his music had
made such an impact.”

Mick’s other sex-equals-drugs banger.
Andrew Perry marvels at a libidinous groove.

With mirror-image sequencing at side two's
pole position, comparable themes of carnal
addiction, and even selection as B-side to Sticky
Fingers’ world-beating megahit, Bitch can only
ever stand in Brown Sugar's shadow. Where
that song unfolds majestically according to

a pop song's ‘pocket symphony’ narrative,
however, this flipside version hits its target
noless convincingly.

The opening 15 seconds are miraculous: Bill
Wyman leads the charge, establishing a tough,
tensile groove which drills ahead undeviatingly
to 0:45, before breaking into an elevating bridge
section, then snapping back onto the rails with
a blast of declamatory horns. Woo-hoo!

Worked up from an initial Jagger sketch,
Bitch is a textbook case of the Stones’ two-man

songwriterly push-and-pull. Circa October '70,
probably at Stargroves, a jam conducted by
Mick, Charlie Watts and saxman Bobby Keys

was limping along inconclusively. Mick Taylor
drifted in on rhythm guitar, but, according to
engineer Andy Johns, it was when Keith Richards
swanned in characteristically late that every-
thing coalesced.

Richards sat on the floor, shoeless, to
evening-breakfast on a bowl of cereal, but
suddenly leapt up to grab his Dan Armstrong
plexiglass guitar, accelerate the tempo

substantially, and hone that thrusting rhythm el, ነ
1

to perfection. “It went from being this laconic
mess into a real groove,” Johns remembered,
“and | thought, ‘Wow, that’s what he does!"

It’s Richards, reputedly, who solos with
extravagant (curiously Taylor-esque) fluidity for
90-odd seconds towards the end, while Taylor
himself chugs behind in support. The 2015
deluxe reissue unearthed a different, looser
take that stretches out to nearly six priapic
minutes, thundering on and on into the night.

They also got the soul, argues
Sylvie Simmons.

If Sticky Fingers is the Stones album
sometimes overlooked by critics
salivating over Exile On Main St.,| Got
TheBlues is the song that tends to
get overlooked on Sticky Fingers.

Hear him knocking? Bill
: Wyman remembers the
TW “lucky occasions"; (below)
Ampeg Dan Armstrong
Plexiglass guitar, as used
by Keith on Bitch.

Lord knows why. Maybe some of the other slow
songs or blues songs offer more of a story, while
alll Got The Blues has is perfection.

There are times it evokes Love In Vain in its
pace and mood. Both are laments for a woman
who's gone - though where Robert Johnson's
protagonist tries to get her back, Jagger's,
pained as he is, is all about acceptance. With the

tenderness displayed in Wild Horses and in
stark contrast to the machismo of Bitch,
® he prays that she finds a better guy who
ls “Won't drag you down with abuse."
je Despite the title, this is nota
straightahead blues. It’s equal parts
blues, gospel and soul; a bit Robert
Johnson but a bigger bit Otis Redding,
another of Mick and Keith's heroes: I've
Been Loving You Too Long (which the
Stones covered five years earlier) or
Pain In My Heart slowed way, way down.

The slowness has a lot to do with its
captivating beauty: a heroin tempo that
feels on the verge of falling asleep - per-
haps “in the silk sheet of time” - yet never
loses its focus. And Jagger's vocal sounds
clean and clear, as does Mick Taylor's guitar,
hard-edged even through the

reverb. The piéces de resistance,
though, come from the “outsiders”:
Billy Preston's soaring gospel
keyboards add a touch of the divine,
whilethe Stax-style horn section
bring an epic physicality tothe
heart-breakanda stirring glory
tothe song. >

MOJO 63

M NV O M ||]

Ehe Aims Pro;

"Rolling truck Stones
thing": the mobile in
its current home in
Calgary, Canada.

How to co-write with the Stones and geta
credit (eventually), by Marianne Faithfull.

This is what | remember and it’s quite clear. We
were in London and Mick was strumming this
tune all the time, a lovely tune but it had no
words. And eventually | got sick of hearing it
and said, “Look, Mick, let me write some.”

Solwrote this story about a man who'd had
an accident. He's dying, and in terrible pain and
all he wants is for the nurse to bring him another
shot. It’s definitely a kind of junkie song except
that neither Mick nor | knew much about junkies
back then, although | knew more, because
| already knew [beat poet] Gregory Corso and
[Faithfull’s first husband, art dealer] John Dunbar
- people who did use narcotics. And | think,
partly, ifl had to puta real person init,
Sister Morphine might have been
Anita [Pallenberg]. Because she
had just played Nurse Bullock in
thefilm Candy.

Irecorded my version in LA in
'68 with Mickand Charlie and Jack
Nitzsche, who adored - he wasa
monster, really, but | miss him
terribly -anditturned out really
well. It came out on a single with
Something Better, a lovely
recording. But Decca were very
nervous about Sister Morphine.
They weren't very bright at Decca,

à
ያ
i
à
$
f

Marianne Faithfull

you know. I mean, there's actually nothing illegal
goingonin the song, butthere was definitely a
backlash against me and the Stones at the time.
We had a bad reputation, which today is almost
like a badge of honour.

Was it a surprise when it turned up on Sticky
Fingers? Yes – a tremendous shock. And without
my credit! was so angry. | fought and fought
until | got the credit back, and | did get it back,
but it took at least 20 years. Why did they resist?
Well it’s a team, isn't it: Mick Jagger and Keith
Richards? And it was unheard of to let someone
else in. Letting a woman in would have been
even more awful!

With my own experience of addiction, the
song became much deeper for me -when | sing
it, all my life experience comes rushing up to
meet me. Band after band of mine loved playing
it, to the extent that if | ever said, "I don’t feel like
doing Sister Morphine tonight,” there would bea
revolution! | guess it was the best song | had ever
written and the best song | ever was to write.

She Walks In Beauty, by Marianne Faithfull with
Warren Ellis, is out now on BMG.

Henry Diltz/Cache Agency/Dalle, Brandon Wallis, бегесі Mankowitz, © Alec Byrne-www.rpmarchives.com

Let's sway: the Stones on-stage
with Stephen Stills (front),
Amsterdam, October 9, 1970;
(right) the back sleeve and inserts,
with tongue logo; (far right, from
top) Jagger in the studio with
Marianne Faithfull; Mick, Mick
and Keith share an acoustic
momentat The Marquee, 1971.

Shooting up, kicking shit: a "headneck"
classicis hailed by Michael Simmons

“The mixture of black and white American music
had plenty of space to be explored,” wrote Keith
Richards in his 2010 autobiography, Life. The
Stones had already written and recordeda
country song - Dear Doctor on 19685 Beggars
Banquet (the world would wait until 1975, and
the Metamorphosis compilation, to hear their
own version of the proto-country Somethings
Just Stick In Your Mind). Since then, Keith had sat
for Gram Parsons’ tutorial on heroin, Hank
Williams, Merle Haggard and George Jones. You
hear it in Wild Horses, although Wild Horses
doesn’t have the shitkick of Dead Flowers.

But it was Mick, not Keith, who took credit for
writing it. “It’s a joke, really,” he told MOJO in
2016. “A vulnerable lyric done in a very invulner-
able way." The po' boy junkie protagonist is
attempting to seduce a posh dame riding in "a
rose pink Cadillac". Perhaps he'll emerge with a
notch on his belt; she'll be gone while he moves
ontothe next conquest, tossing roses on her
memory. And yet there’s a rueful edge that
suggests his boasts hide heartbreak: he'll still
be there “with a needle and a spoon" and
bedhopping "to take my pain away”, while she
remains "the queen ofthe underground".

It's deceptive: on onelevela novelty, on
anotheran examination of lust and class.
Meanwhile, Mick Taylor mimics pedal steel licks

and lan Stewart plays honky-tonk piano with
"bent note" splash - another Sticky Fingers nod to
Nashville session pianist Floyd Cramer. The
eleventeenth example of Americana before it
hadaname, Mickand the Stones have performed
itasa duet with contemporary country star Brad
Paisley and others, and its combo of twang and
transgression made it a perfect cover song for
hillbilly-headneck fuck-ups like Jerry Lee Lewis,
Townes Van Zandt and Steve Earle. In other
words, it’s timeless.

Sticky Fingers crawls its last 1.60934 km,
asleep butawake. Mark Blake rides shotgun.

Ascoldly macho as The Rolling Stones can be,
they're still proneto great sensitivity, even
sentimentality. Witness Moonlight Mile. It's also
Sticky Fingers' only possible conclusion, and
unimaginable anywhere else in the sequencing.
Jagger said he wrote the lyrics while bored
and homesick on a train, and pieced the song
together with Mick Taylor late one night at
Stargroves. Taylor fooled around with an existing
Keith Richards idea (nicknamed Japanese
Thing’), but Richards himself isn't on the song.
Hired hand/trumpeter Bill Price played the

piano and his two-note figure at 0:18 minutes,
simulated a few seconds by Jagger's girlish vocal,
sounds like a Japanese koto. That's also Jagger
picking out the hesitant-sounding intro on
acoustic guitar. It suggests a Rolling Stone - any
Rolling Stone - wearily climbing the steps onto
the bus before falling into the arms of Morpheus.

“When the wind blows/And the rain feels
cold...” drawls Jagger, punctuated by Charlie
Watts’ cymbal splashes and Taylor's languid fills.
The lyrics veer from obvious comments about
touring life (“Just another mad, mad day on the
road") to the more inspired "Made a rag pile of
my shiny clothes". It's Jagger tossing his costume
-thesilver-studded choker and skinny-rib velvet
top - intoa corner ofthe hotel room.

Here, the Stones manage that very Stones
trick of sounding both utterly exhausted and
wide awake at the same time. Moonlight Mile
never becomes dreary because things keep
happening. Paul Buckmaster's strings arrive at
the 2:18-minute mark to counterpoint Jagger's
voice with swooping violins and cellos. A minute
later Taylor weighs in on electric guitar. It even
has a fake-ish ending, allowing them all to play
tag with each other for a further minute. Then,
finally, The Rolling Stones are home.

Bits and pieces transformed by genius.

Like we said before: it's Sticky Fingers’ only
possible conclusion.

MOJO 65

Amy Winehouse, backstage
at Coachella, Indio, California,
where she was way down the
bill on Friday, April 27, 2007.

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MOJO 67

PRING WAS TURNING TO SUMMER AS THE 18-YEAR-OLD AMY

Winehouse landed at Miami International Airport. It was the last week of

May 2002 and the nascent singer was newly signed to EMI Music Publishing,

who had decided to try matching her with Fugees/Nas producer Salaam

Remi. Winehouse and her 21-year-old manager, Nick Shymansky, both

just kids really, were buzzed to be in the States: rolling around in a hired
convertible, living it up at the beachside art deco Raleigh Hotel.

It had taken some convincing by their shared A&R man Guy Moot

before Remi had agreed to meeting Winehouse, having been unmoved

by what he considered to be her Erykah Badu-lite neo-soul demos. But

on day one at Remi's downtown Creative Space studio, when Winehouse

walked in with her guitar, sat down, and played and sang The Girl From

Ipanema for him, her talent instantly shone.

Take it to the beach: 21-year-old Amy with first
manager Nick Shymansky, Miami, 2002; (right)
Salaam Remi in his New York studio, 2013.

“It lit up the entire room,” Remi tells
MOJO today. “You could really hear her voice
projecting and that’s what caught me. She
was hitting jazz notes and nailing it with the
skill of a 75-year-old woman who'd been do-
ing that forever."

Immediately inspired, the pair picked up
on the jazzy bossa nova vibes and quickly
wrote a song together called Cherry, in which
Winehouse seemed to be singing about her
best friend and confessor, revealed in the
closing line to be *my new guitar". It set the
lyrical tone for what was to become Wine-
house's debut album, Frank. *It was her hav-
ing the idea of the joke she wanted to tell,"
says Remi, *and how she was gonna build this
song to get to that punchline."

Musicians and producers who worked
with Amy Winehouse all have similar stories,
building a vivid picture: a singer with skills
that seemed out of time — beamed from the
golden ages of jazz and soul; a writer with the
gift of spinning her personal experiences into
candid songs that were variously poignant,
catchy, catty and hilarious. As a girl growing
up in Southgate, north London, she'd discov-

68 MOJO

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егей her voice by singing along to Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra and
jazz soloists. As a young artist in 2002, and as Salaam Remi was
discovering, she was beginning to take these influences and shape
them into a musical character that was completely her own.

While her death a decade ago makes her story a tragedy — ours
as much as hers, for who knows how many more timeless gems
she'd have written and sung — she was the first to see the funny side
in even the darkest topics. It was part of her genius, and certainly
her charm.

"It's funny," she said when I asked about the role of her father
Mitch’s infidelity in the Frank song What Is It About Men?. “I write
about personal situations, but I like to give it a little punchline, so
you can look back and laugh. Rather than go, ‘O, woe is me.’ I like
to be able to go, *Well, that was a bit of a shitty one. But
I got through.

HE RAPPORT BETWEEN REMI
M and Winehouse that helped unlock the
latter’s talent in 2002 was built on fun

and head games. In Miami, the producer of-

э»

fered to recycle a funky loop he'd built from
The Incredible Bongo Band's 1973 take on
The Shadows' Apache and had used on Nas's
recent single Made You Look, but teasingly
withheld it until he felt she'd written a song
that deserved it.

“I was like, ‘All right, the beat is muted,”
laughs Remi. “If the song is strong enough,
then we'll bring the beat back in.”

Winehouse duly upped her game, and the
result was a sultry yet cynical examination of
sex and love: In My Bed.

*Salaam and her had this brother/sister
relationship," says Darcus Beese, Wine-
house's A&R man when she subsequently
signed to Island Records. “Не was one of the
very few people that she would be really
comfortable with in making records. He was
her mentor and Salaam's place was a bit of a
sanctuary for her."

When Frank was released in October
2003, its commercial performance was dis-
appointing. Winehouse herself criticised the
“fake strings” added to one track, Take The
Box (which Darcus Beese now accepts was
“my fault”) and even lambasted the team at

ptital Pictures, Dan Hallman/Invision/AP/Shutterstoc, Ross Kirton/Eyevine

Island as “idiots... but they’re nice idiots”. It
was a marker, the sound of an inchoate > 5

Amy in Camden,
2009: “I like to be
able to go, 'Well
that was a bit of a
shitty one. But 1
got through’...

ANLE
WINNIE 170

<< artist rapidly taking individualistic form, but
the leap from there to what she did next — simply,
one of the great albums of the 21st century —
remains astonishing.

"Amy was so intelligent," says Dale Davis, her
bassist and live musical director from 2003 until

& her death. “She’d only observed the process of

what was going on. Then she got it together for Back
going Ё £g
To Black.”
Nonetheless, outwardly at least, Amy Winehouse never
seemed to be at all impressed by her own talents, particularly as a
singer. While those around her were frequently astounded by her

5 voice, she merely shrugged.

“I never thought I was talented, or particularly special,” she told
3 me in February 2007, four months into Back To Black’s romp to-
wards 16 million worldwide sales. “I just thought, ‘Yeah, I can sing,

cool.' Alot of people can sing, d'you know what I mean? I still don't
think it's that special, to be honest."

HE FIRST CLUES AS TO THE MUSICAL INFLUENCES
that would shape Back To Black were the ever-changing snip-

bets of songs Winehouse left as her outgoing voicemail
8 Боё

Э
2
3 messages throughout 2005. Although they weren't touring together
8 that year, Dale Davis called the singer often to check in with her.

*You could hear on her answering machine the style of music
going from the ’60s girl groups to Т he S pecials,” he says. “So, you
groug Ы

4 knew the direction she was going in. She wouldn’t necessarily talk
2 about it, but you knew уу hat was going through her mind."

© In truth, Winehouse was having. a ter rible year, heartbroken
= after splitting from her then-boy friend (and future husband ) Blake

Fielder-Civil. Reaching for a bottle of Jack Daniel's from the
` moment she woke, she was a sobbing mess, with one particular
song providing the repeat-play soundtrack to her romantic grief.
“I was listening to the fucking Shangri-Las’ I Can Never Go
Home Anymore on a loop," Amy told me, , her face lighting up when

70 MOJO

№ A ^»

recording once and that's all she needed to see (му GHI

Winehouse in New York City,
2003; (left, clockwise from
top left) Amy and brother

] Alex, circa 1991; self-portraits
from her notebook, 2005;
Paul O'Duffy, producer;
Darcus Beese, Island A&R.

WORMS, И И
ТАКОВ WO
СІН," АМҰ WHEREHIOUS!

relating the grim melodrama of Shadow Morton's 1965

tale of a lovestruck schoolgirl who runs away from
home, only to fatally break the heart of her mother.

"It's the most depressing song," she marvelled. “1

love that bit: 'She grew so lonely in the end/The

angels picked her for their friend.' I'd be like that,

«ее. glug glug glug, crying my eyes out. To the point

where my flatmate used to come home from work,

2 see me on the kitchen floor with my bottle and be like,

‘Urgh, and just turn around and leave. She knew there was

nothing she could do."

Producer Paul O’Duffy, co-writer of Wake Up Alone, the first
song completed for Back To Black, similarly recalls Winehouse being
in thrall to The Shangri-Las.

“She loved the idea with (һе ’60s girl groups that it's everything
or nothing, in terms of the relationship," he says. *She was very
interested in the devastation aspect of it. For it to be brutal in
that way and not a nuanced thing. Y'know, *My heart's bleeding,
I'm gonna die.”

О” Duffy had previous experience recording the self-titled 1996
debut album of north London soul enigma Lewis” Taylor. The people
at Island Records figured he could cr catively negotiate with another
"difficult" artist. The producer's first impression of Winehouse was
that she was friendly, yet somehow distant and easily distracted.
“Гуе met Van Morrison once before,” he says, “and it was that same
sort of a slight disconnect."

In early writing sessions at O'Duffy's home studio in High Bar-
net — sometimes cancelled when Winehouse turned up deuce after
pulling an all-nighter — she didn’t seem to be engaging with the
track they were working on, which had been inspired by the pro-
ducer introducing the singer to Deep In The Night, the closing song
on 1972 album Sarah Vaughan With Michel Legrand.

“She had a book, and she would be drawing pictures of herself
with love hearts and things, and you knew she was off in another
world,” O'Duffy explains. “Then ‘she started writing lyrics and at a

certain point, she said, ‘Oh, I’ve got something.’ 18 the normal

process, a singer might share that lyrical or melodic idea. But it
wasn't, ‘Shall I just try this bit here?’ She sang it in one take. I was
like, ‘Wow, where does this come from?"

John Harrison, AKA P*nut, had a very similar experience with
Winehouse when, around the same time, he produced the original
demo of He Can Only Hold Her, based on a sample from (My Girl)
She's A Fox by The Iceme n, the 1966 R&B single featuring Jimi
Hendrix on guitar.

“Га be constructing the track, but she wasn't really forthcoming
in what she was gonna be doing," Harrison remembers. *She was
really private about it. I ke »pt on saying, ‘Right, we've been in here
four ‘days.’ What the fuck, basically?

“So, I didn’t have any concept of the lyrics or her melody until
she one day said, ‘OK, set up the mike.’ She just recorded two
vocals and they really were totally perfect. It was amazing. She’d
worked everything out in her head.”

Back over in Miami in December 2005, Winehouse hooked up
once again with Salaam Remi, with one page alone of her lyric book
yielding the beginnings of Back To Black tracks Addicted, Just
Friends and Tears Dry On Their Own. Together the pair went
record shopping for further inspiration, buying up albums by The
“5” Royales and The Platters and listening to Neil Diamond’s 1958
lovelorn weepie Blue Destiny.

Moreover, having heard the tales of Winehouse's drunkenness
and blown sessions emanating from London, Remi was very happy
to see that the singer had cleaned up her act.

“She had a thing where she didn’t ever drink when she came out
to work with me,” he says. “When we started Back To Black her eyes
were really clear and really crystal green. So, I could look at her and
tell she’d detoxed from alcohol.”

Nonetheless, despite Winehouse making creative headway in
Miami, Island Records and EMI Music Publishing were keen to
throw the net wider. “They suggested that she go to New York and
work with Mark Ronson,” says Remi. “Which she wasn’t really up
for. She was like, ‘Why have I got to go there?”

КИ

forbiddingly creaky elevator with doors you opened by hand, and so

ARKRONSON'S ALLIDO STUDIO WAS LOCATED
in a former industrial building on Mercer Street
in SoHo. The place was still equipped with a

when Winehouse first arrived at his door in March 2006 Ronson
decided to go down and meet her in the street. And there she was,
unmistakable in her teetering, soon-to-be-iconic beehive, satin >

үү:

THE RECORDS THAT PLAYED ON AMY
WINEHOUSE'S INNER JUKEBOX,
BY DANNY ECCLESTON.

THE SHIANIGRI-
1 CAN NEVER GO HOME ANYMORE

(Red Bird single, 1965)
AUS Number 6 for
the Queens girl
group.Long
sections of deadpan
poken word from

Mary Weiss -telling
ofa runaway teen and the tragic
impact on her mother - up the
gothic ante, while the girls’
unvarnished voices lend a docu-
mentary verité. Like punk Spector.

SARAH VWAUGIHIARI
SARAH VAUGHAN WITH MICHEL LEGRAND
(Mainstream, 1972)
m Late-ish Vaughan
Ы but as “Divine”
as ever, with
anextra-rich
bluesiness іп her
lower register.
Winehouse would cite Deep In The
Night, the closing song from this
collaboration with the French film
music maestro. You can see howits
frank sensuality and theme of
early-hours longing hit home.

NEN ДАММ

BLUE DESTINY

(from In My Lifetime, 1996)

[. . . - | Diamond called this
1958 demo his first
composition to
һауе “ап етобіопа!
effect”, but it would
take the release of
anarchive comp for
it to see the light of
day. An Everly
Brothers influence

is is clear onthis elegant song forthe

dumped, one of Back To Black's
audio іпѕрігегѕ.

DIN AI
WV/ASIBIIIRIGTORI
TEACH ME TONIGHT

(Mercury single, 1954)
Exquisite phrasing
and crystal diction
froma singer
| who combined
sophistication and
” | passionate intensity.
Winehouse sang this on Jools

ШЙ CURIE WINWIL

Holland's New Year’s Eve TV showin
2004 and made “Let's start with the
ABC of it/Roll right down to the XYZ
of it” sound as slyly erotic as Sammy
Cahn surely intended.

DONNY HATHAWAY

(Atco, 1971)

Winehouse always noted her debt
to Hathaway, who died in 1979 beset
by mental health problems (see
MOJO 303). From this album of
covers, she fixed on his aching take
on Leon Russell’s dramatic A Song
For You. Amy’s version on Lioness:
Hidden Treasures sounds like

she’s barely clinging on.

STETIT [9 1197 4
BODY AND SOUL

በ Vocalion single, 1940)
ЕС | Amyhadmore than
| atouch of Holiday's
slur and sense that
I| she was singing
; | mainly to herself.
= | This 1940 version of
thetune Winehouse would tackle
with Tony Bennett is beautiful and
poised; a 1957 version on Verve, cut
two years before Holiday’s death,
is spare and poignantly crushed.

RUBY ANID ТШЕ
ROMARNTICS

OUR DAY WILL COME

(Kapp single, 1963)

The deliciously
a creamy alto pipes of
К<” Akron's Ruby Nash
were never better
Ж” framed than by the
tiki-bar bossanova
andglockenspiel-a-go-go of her
group's debut (US Number 1) smash.
Amy's 2002 recording - buffed
up for the posthumous Lioness -
is one of the most openand
sunny things she ever did.

ИШДИ
.

Neil Diamond in
1967. His Blue
Destiny demo had

on Winehouse.

“ап emotional effect"

jacket, jeans shorts and leopard skin
ballet pumps.

Ronson introduced himself and
Winehouse gave him a puzzled look.
Perhaps imagining the archetype of a
white New York hip-hop producer to be
someone like Rick Rubin, she said, *Oh,
you're Mark Ronson? I thought you
were like an old guy with a beard or
something." Upstairs in the studio, to
break the awkwardness and build trust,
Ronson talked to her about music, dis-
covering shared tastes in Motown, early-’70s
soul and '90s hip-hop. The singer then intro-
duced the producer to The Shangri-Las.

“[ was really inspired,” Ronson told MOJO
in 2015. “Both by her and the kind of music she
was talking about wanting to make. So, when she
left that night, I wrote the piano part and the
music for [title track] Back To Black and then I
played it for her the next morning.”

True to character, Winehouse didn’t give
much away, and left to make a call. In fact, she was talking to Darcus
Beese in London, arranging to stay on in New York for motke five
days to work with Ronson. Taking her guitar and a tape of the in-
strumental into another room, Winehouse quickly came up with
the lyrics and melody. “She wrote B Back To Black i in, like, three
hours," Ronson remembered. “It’s crazy.’

The singer was once again similarly swift when it came to nailing
her always part- improvised vocal takes. “It was so honest," Ronson
stressed. “She would never sing it the same way twice, 'cos that
felt un-genuine. It's like, *Well, why would I do it again the same
exactly? Then it becomes false.”

For his part, the producer saw through Winehouse's apparent
disregard of her vocal talents: *There was a side of her that knew she
had a fucking amazing voice and could smoke any singer out there.
But she'd ake a throwaway, self- -deprecating joke the second the
take was over. Y’know, ‘Oh, that’s shit.’ But kinda knowing that it
was amazing at the same time.”

On a break from the studio, wandering around SoHo, Wine-
house told Ronson how, in the depths of the previous year, her
management had suggested she go to a treatment facility for her
drinking. It was beginning of Rehab.

"I sang the hook just out of nowhere, as a joke,” Winehouse told
me. “He started laughing and he went, ‘Who’s that?’ I went, ‘What
do you mean? I just made it up.’ He was like, “That would be so cool
if that was a song.’ The songs just wrote themselves because I had so
much subject matter.”

At first, Winehouse imagined Rehab as a slow Johnny Cash-
styled country blues, before Ronson souped it up with Motown

(3), Alpha Press, Camera Press

Avalon.red

72 MOJO

beats and scratchy electric
guitars. To Winehouse’s
ears, it sounded like The
Libertines. “Mark was like,
‘Aren’t they the shit
Strokes?’” she remembered.
*[ said, ‘Mark, The Liber-
tines made people proud to
be British. That was London
for a real spell, y’know.””

Other tracks quickly fol-
lowed: the sad and resigned
Love Is A Losing Game; the brazen
sex comedy of You Know I’m
No Good, with its admission that
she’d two-timed Fielder-Civil and
vivid details including that “likkle
carpet burn”.

When I asked Winehouse how
much of the latter lyric was true,
she was surprisingly mortified.

“Oh! Like, come on!” she ex-
claimed, flushing with embarrass-
ment. “I forget these things, though, d’you
know what I mean? Yeah. Blake hates it. He’s
really proud of me, but it’s so personal it must
be hard. When I’m like, pen to paper, I’m the
most honest I get.”

Mark Ronson took the basic tracks he’d re-
corded at Allido with Winehouse and fleshed
them out with amorphous retro soul outfit
The Dap-Kings in their Brooklyn studio, Dap-
tone, housed in a Bushwick brownstone.

“Tt was a pretty rundown, shitty place,” says Dap-
Kings guitarist Tom Brenneck. “When I made the pil-
grimage to Detroit to go to Motown, I was blown
away by how much bigger their live room was. High
ceilings and the whole shebang. Man, there was ahigh
ceiling at Daptone because they ripped it out and you
were looking at the pipes to the kitchen above."

The Dap-Kings played live together in the room,
crammed vir tually shoulder-to- shoulder recording
to tape. Winehouse was by this point back in London and so
Ronson spun in her isolated vocals, as the band performed, using a
CD DJ unit. “Maybe it'd be a little out of time here and there,” says
Brenneck, *but Mark would basically manipulate her a cappella to
go along with us.”

Darcus Beese flew to New York to hear the results at Allido and
was instantly blown away. “Yeah, you could say that,” he laughs.
“The first song Mark play ed me was Rehab and I was just like,
‘Rewind that tune, man! What the fuck is that?’ Mark and Amy had
sat down for weeks and really homed in on what it was she was try-
ing to achieve. People were doing all that pastiche throwback stuff

at the time, but Amy was the real deal."
M had sketched out with Salaam Remi in Miami now
sounded decidedly downtempo in comparison to the
Ronson-produced tracks. Beese: “1 played Salaam the Mark Ron-
son tracks that had that urgency and drive and I said, ‘Look, I've got
this with Mark, and I've got this with you, Salaam. How do we
bridge the gap?’ Salaam said, ‘Leave it with me.”
Remi remembers, “I said, ‘All right, cool, send her out and

EANWHILE, THE SONGS THAT WINEHOUSE

I’m gonna figure it out and see where it needs to go.’ Darcus
was like, ‘How do I tie it together?’ I was like, ‘It’s her... she'll tie
it together.”

The producer proceeded to reconfigure the slow acoustic jazz of
Me And Mr Jones as an attitude-charged doo wop track. Just
Friends, originally named I’ve Been Drinking, was transformed
from a moody ballad into pacey reggae. But it was Remi’s >

"S09 CIRIL GIROW

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Amy on Hic age in Hamburg, 2020 зо
Dale ve s; (о Фр site, clockwise fro

left) o vi аде with Mark Ron: n. BRIT |
Awards, Ea ሠ ሥር д 5 eds ary 20, iol

Amya е рар:
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Mitch and mother Jan

Awards, London , 2008; the Rehab si ingle.

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ГІН

IDARLIE DAWIS

<< dramatic overhaul of Tears Dry On Their Own
that would produce one of Back To Black's standout
moments, after he discovered online leaks of some
of the isolated backing tracks of Marvin Gaye &
Tammi Terrell's Ain't No Mountain High Enough.

"T was sitting there listening to it and I was tell-
ing Amy, “Tears Dry could [work over] that,”
Remi says. "She just could not hear it. I almost had
to sing it pretty much to get her to figure it out, and
she still was frustrated. Being One-Take Amy, that's the
most [outtake] swearing that I recorded of her, ever.

“But it was just really the whole idea of her singing very sad lyrics
against an encouraging backing track. That juxtaposition, and also
making it one of the faster records on the album, kind of gave it
another level of spark."

Originally, the plan had been for Remi and Winehouse to com-
plete these final Back To Black sessions at his Creative Space studio.
But the producer had recently moved into a new house, and the
singer was far keener on working there.

"It was a two-storey ceiling, wooden living room," he says. “She
walked іп and was like, ‘I want to sing right here.’ She recorded all
of her vocals standing in the middle of the floor. I just put all the
equipment in that house. 1 bought a piano, put in a Rhodes and the
organ and the drum kit. You hear the sound of that room on Me
And Mr Jones."

Back in New York, Winehouse began rehearsing with The Dap-
Kings, who became her American touring band for a series of shows
and TV appearances. Sax player Neal Sugarman set up the first
rehearsal in a friend's basement in Brooklyn.

“I didn't even think, ‘Oh, I should get some fancy rehearsal
space in the city, because this is like a budding rock star,” he laughs.

Alpha Press, O'Rourke/GoffPhotos.com, Getty, Harvey Fox

“I think she actually really liked that part of it. She was real late to

74 MOJO

Winehouse at Glastonbury, 2007; (opposite, clockwise
from top left) The Dap-Kings, 2003, with Sharon Jones, Tom
Brenneck (far right) and Neal Sugarman (third from right);
on-stage and in some distress, Belgrade, Serbia, June 18,

| 2011; with rapper Nas, Covent Garden, London, July 2010.

МЕМ

the rehearsal because she went into our favourite record
store, Academy Records in Williamsburg, and showed
up with a stack of Dinah Washington and cool doo
wop and soul records. So, immediately it was really
easy to connect with her. It was like, ‘Oh, she digs
these old records like we do.”

Winehouse's first New York show with The Dap-
Kings was at the 180-capacity Joe's Pub in the East
Village on January 16, 2007. Tom Brenneck remembers
there being an instant industry buzz around the singer:

“Dr. John was in the audience, Jay-Z and Beyoncé, Mos Def. АП
these iconic musicians in that tiny little space."

As the shows progressed — from South By Southwest to Coachella
to The Roxy in Los Angeles — it was clear to Neal Sugarman that
Back To Black was appealing to all types. “It was an eye-opening
experience,” he says. “We were playing to such a wide variety of
people. Like, black people, white people, gay, straight, young, old,
misfits. People were flipping out hearing those songs. It was super
fun to be playing that music for people who were really loving that
album and having a chance to see her perform. Which, y’know, we
know now was a rare experience, unfortunately.”

“She didn’t love performing,” reckons Tom Brenneck. “She
would be happy to just fuck off in the middle of the show. We were
kind of used to putting on shows, really engaging with the audience.
She would kill it, but I don’t think she loved it, and these shows
were jam-packed, sold out.”

Released in October 2006, Back To Black sold quickly, turning
six times platinum in the UK alone by the end of 2007. Dale
Davis, leading her British live band, watched it blow up first-hand.
He even witnessed Winehouse taking some rare credit for her
accomplishments.

“I said, ‘Well done, Amy, it’s amazing what you've achieved,”

Davis recalls. "And she said, ‘I knew what I was doing.’ She didn't
mean that in an arrogant way, but she'd got the formula right. The
songs are very short, to the point, so descriptive. She was not only
a great performer, but an absolutely incredible songwriter."

Di ІІ HE NEXT ALBUM'S ALL GONNA BE ABOUT
songs that were left over from this one," Amy insist-
ed to me at the start of 2007. “’Cos I’ve got so mu

As long as Гуе got a voice and I’ve got two hands and I can play

guitar and sing, y'know, I'm the wodd s ha] woman really."

But as we now know, outside influences, suc len megawatt fame
and runaway habits overwhelmed Winehouse throughout 2007
-= into 2008: her dangerous reunion with and marriage to Fielder-

ivil, intense daily harassment by the paparazzi, her seemingly
uncontrollable urges to obliterate herself with crack and heroin.

“Her whole situation escalated so quickly that it caught everyone

,” says Dale Davis. “At the start of 2008, the perfor-

mances started to get erratic. This is no slight on Amy at all, y know,

SO unawares

because it was the pressures of life.”

Davis acknowledges that Winehouse’s drug use took a perhaps
irreparable toll on her voice but says that there were times when
her singing was still dazzling and deeply felt. “Yeah, I think the
indulgences did have an effect,” he states. “I’m not sure if she'd
damaged her lungs. But I spent an evening with her in 2008 after

she'd won all the Grammys and we were listening to Thelonious

Monk and she was just singing all these parts. 5 y single
note and they're complex to follow. She just had it all down."

Big offers arrived in the wake of Back To Black, not least for
Winehouse to write and sing the theme for 2008 James Bond film,
Quantum Of Solace. Mark Ronson and Bond soundtrack composer
David Arnold worked up a track that was, in the words of the latter,
"a contemporary post-'60s piece".

^] was on the baritone guitar playing very John Barr
stuff,” says Tom Brenneck. * The way Mark does anything, he went
in hard and really trie = to write something sp al. It would have
been ir ible, man.”
Progress on the track stalled when Winehouse failed to come up

with any completed ly or melodies. Ronson publicly stated that

Amy was “not ready to record any music” laam Remi, in >

WOIICIEOIF
ШІТІЗЗІЗ ТІПТІ:

AMY, AMY, AMY, AND MORE AMY
IN VICTORIA SEGAL’S VINTAGE
WINEHOUSE PLAYLIST.

TEARS DRY ON
THEIR OWA

(Back To Black, 2006)

Constructed around Ain't No
Mountain High Enough - here, more
statement of pure abjection than
declaration of love’s all-conquering
power - this beautiful studyin
romantic hopelessness unfolds in
the Hopper-like “blue shade” ofa
hotel room. “He walks away, the sun
goes down" - it’sarelationship’s
final frame on endless repeat.

J HEARD
LOWE WS IBILIRIID

(Frank, 2003)
~] There’sa filthy, flirty
Sands Hotel
playfulness to this
Iwan Š ене g| role-reversing
| | revenge fantasy, ап
E A all-cats-are-grey
apology for infidelity that sees
Winehouseargue she only slept
with another man because he
resembled her boyfriend: “He’s just
not as tall but I couldn't tell/It was
በ፳፻፪ 8በ61 ነ/85|ሃ| በ9 down.”

IN MIY BED

(Frank, 2003)

Another Frank power move, this
track separates love and sex with a
withering eye, 8 warning toa
returning lover not to get too
comfortable: “Listen, this isn’t a
reunion/So sorry if | turn my head."
Theskittish trip-hop backing,
meanwhile, suggests the singer's
attention is already elsewhere, the
time for pillow talk over.

МАШ РӘШ

(Single, 2007)

Originally recorded
for Mark Ronson’s
solo Version LP, this
cover of The Zutons’
| 2006 single was one
of the rare modern
tracks to infiltrate Winehouse’s
pre-1967 tastes. She makes the most
of it, every line imprinted with
yearning desire, the sound of
somebody asking for something
they know they might not get.

IRIE TH ALB

(Amy Winehouse At The BBC, 2021)
From origins asa dark, self-depre-
cating joke, this personal protest
song became harder to hear over
time. This live version froma
Porchester Hall show in 2007
catches all its jutting defiance,

Winehouse carried through its
undertow by her band, her voice
flying on “| just, I just needa friend.”

WALI TO |3

(Lioness: Hidden Treasures, 2011)
This mellow, fluting
outtake from Frank
(developed for
Lioness with Ahmir
‘Questlove’
Thompson on
drums) could stand asa Winehouse
origin story: a sweet-voiced,
heartfelt testament to music's
power. Faultlines and nerve endings
still show through, though: “When
Frank Sinatra sings,” she swoons,
“it's too much to take."

HIELP YOURSIEIL IF
(Frank, 2003)

With hindsight, the Doris Day
sample is heavily ironic, but there’s
abreeze and brightness here, a
reminder of Winehouse's early direct
charm. Over a gingham-patterned
groove, Winehouse tells her older
lover - with a philosophy degree, no
less – that she’s the one wise beyond
her years: no fools suffered here.

AMY
WINEHOUSE

AT THE BBC

YOU МОЗГ
ТЕМ RIO GOOID
(Amy Winehouse At The BBC, 2021)

With its beatnik percussion and
close-up vocals, there’s a pleasing
intimacy to this 2007 radio session
cut. Yet there’s nothing laid-backin
Winehouse's forensic document of
infidelity, the flipside of | Heard Love
Is Blind. Bar, bedroom, bathtub - she
ensures you see it all, but the carpet
burn is nothing compared tothe
self-laceration.

LOWE WS
LOSING GAMIE

(Back To Black, 2006)

This Prince favourite was included
ona Cambridge University English
paper, elegant gambling metaphors
and judgmental gods giving ita
classical beauty, but there’s nothing
academic about it: this comes from
hard-lived experience. Transcend-
ing the chaos that created it, it’s a
fabulous display of control and
concision, marble-solid testament
to Winehouse's gifts.

sh CN SM CON S] ААС
(Back To Black, 2006)

For pure drama, Winehouse never
bettered this: from the set-up,
immediate as a movie script (“He left
no time to regret/Kept his dick wet”)
tothe tolling bells, it’s grand theatre.
Yet as the darkness rolls in, there’sa
real sense of a light going out- not
for the first time, not for the last.

<< England at the time, drove down to the studio, The Doghouse
in Henley-on-Thames, where Winehouse was attempting to work.

"Granted she wasn't in her best shape," Remi says. *She'd carved
into a piece of wood in the studio, part of the furniture, with a knife,

like a heart with a bow going through it, that said, *Mark Loves
Mark.’ (Laughs) I looked at it and I was like, ‘You’re an asshole.”

Remi asked the singer if she had anything else she'd been work-
ing on and she opened her book to show im a lyric titled Between
The Cheats. “She grabs the guitar, and she starts playing around
with it," he says. «She starts mumbling a little bit with the lyrics. So,

I played a little bit of жең a little of guitar, put bass and the drums
on it. Then she goes in the booth and she basically sang the song."

Further sessions were booked with Remi in May 2008 at Peter

Gabriel’s Real World Studios near Bath, but the distractions of the
capital were too close for Winehouse to resist. Then, in 2009, Remi
and Winehouse found themselves on the eastern Caribbean island
of Saint Lucia at the same time. By this point Winehouse was free
of hard drugs, still drinking but comparatively on the mend, spend-
ing her days horse-riding and swimming in the sea.

Remi suggested they try to record some tracks in the house he’d
rented. Dale Davis and the UK band were flying in to play the Saint
Lucia Jazz Festival with the singer in the first week of May. The
creative stars seemed to be aligning.

“But that trip wasn’t fruitful as far as the recording,” Remi
laments. “She wrote a lot of stuff. We ended up having the full
tracklist, but we just didn’t get the chance to record it.” The prob-
lem, once again, was Winehouse’s lack of focus. “She’d be there,”
the producer adds, “but then she’d go off for one too many horse-
back rides for me.”

ACK IN LONDON, FRESH ATTEMPTS WERE MADE

to push forward with the third album in the latter half of
2009. Salaam Remi worked with Winehouse in the attic of

a house that she lived in for a short time back in Southgate, together
recording a version of Leon Russell's A Song For You (known to the
singer through Donny Hathaway's 1971 version on his eponymous
second album). Then, at the start of 2010, the sessions moved to
Assault & Battery Studios in Willesden, north-west London.
“Those were probably the last proper sessions,” Remi says. “I
can’t say that there were finished tracks. We had a running list.
Every song that she had a title for. She had it all in the book and
I knew the lyrics and I knew what I had to get done. I was just
waiting for the g green light: *OK, now we're gonna record."
Amid the false starts and frustrations, ideas kept
springing up: a jazz album involving Questlove and
Mos Def; a record of what Winehouse imagined as
Wu-Tang Clan-style “battle raps”.
remembers making a start on a project with the

Salaam Remi even

singer based on sampling Vince Guaraldi’s com- 4
us J ብ ሬ М ы /
positions for the Charlie Brown animations. /

“So, we had ideas and pieces and things ሪ
that we laid out,” he says. “It could've been
anything. She'd already grown so many
levels. And she was obsessive. So, whatever
she got into, she was gonna go all the way there."

Wounds inflicted over the nixed Bond theme healed,
Winehouse had even begun talking to Mark Ronson
about working together again.

5 tog 8

“We had time scheduled to go in, in October 2011,

and we’d spoken a couple of times,” Ronson told
“ » » 7 " 1 7; 7 1

MOJO. “I was always hoping we were going to go

back in.”

As to any future musical direction Winehouse

might have pursued, Ronson reasoned that
Remi оп Amy:

“We lost a great

lyrical voice.”

Avalon.red

“obviously jazz was gonna be at the core.

76 MOJO

That's what felt the most, I guess, innate, and close to her in the way
that she wrote.”

Salaam Remi was in London in the July of 2011 and planned to
visit Winehouse at her Camden Square house on Saturday the 23rd.
He called ahead and left a message for the singer’s security guard,
Andrew Morris. “He calls me back and says, ‘She passed.’ I said,
‘What do you mean?’ I ended up going to the house and outside
there were already maybe two or three press cars, so I run around
the back. Yeah, and that was that."

Тһе St Pancras Coroner's Court report attributed Amy Wine-
house's death to alcohol poisoning. Her system had likely been
weakened by years of bulimia. Meanwhile, she had refused psycho-
logical therapy to combat her alcoholism.

"She only needed to take one step to try and get herself back," says
Dale Davis. *But unfortunately, that one step was always too great."

N THE NUMBED MONTHS THAT FOLLOWED AMY'S

passing, the creative teams and Island Records began piecing

together a posthumous album. Lioness: Hidden Teiste, re-
leased in December 201 1, was understandably patchy.

“It was what it was,” says Salaam Remi. “It made me look back and
really listen to it all." Given the spontaneity with which Winehouse
liked to record, there wasn't much to choose from. “It was like, ‘Oh
wow, there aren't other takes of these vocals,” Remi stresses.

In Miami, Remi put finishing touches to various tracks, including
Between The Cheats, a lovers rock take on '60s R&B group Ruby And
The Romantics’ Our Day Will Come, and the spy thriller-ish Like
Smoke, with added rhymes from Nas, which found the rapper imag-
ining a poignant search around Camden “hunting for the answers”.

“Like smoke I hang around and be your balance,” says Remi,
quoting Winehouse's lyric. *She was hanging round our [mix] bal-
ance (laughs). Hanging over our shoulders."

As to usable Amy Winehouse music that might remain in the

vault, Remi sounds ambivalent. “There are recordings, there are
pieces,” he says. “I’m sure someone could scour the bottom and
make it something. I probably could... maybe in 20 years."

Ultimately, a decade on from her death, it seems that the power
and impact of Amy Winehouse's music has only grown stronger.
“This is the big thing,” stresses Dale Davis. “It’s amazing. I'm
meeting more and more people who, no matter what age,
they're influenced by her. The influence never goes away. I
look at her now as the first star of this millennium."

*She could naturally write great songs and they came
from a place of pain,” says Tom Brenneck. “Which makes
people just instantly feel them. Any songwriter who writes
į from that place well, like Hank Williams ог somebody,
you're gonna get incredible songs that go outside the gen-
re. Which is what she did. Love Is A Losing Game could
be a country song."

Salaam Remi calls Love Is A Losing Game a
modern standard. He mentions how highly
Prince rated the song, performing it live with
f Winehouse at a London aftershow at the O2
Indigo in September 2007, and subsequently sanc-
tioning his recorded acoustic version (featuring
singer Andy Allo) for release within 24 hours
of her death.

“I mean, you don't get Prince [covering] your
song for no reason,” he says. “We lost a great lyri-
cal voice, a great talent. Someone who was able to

flawlessly explain how they felt in a song. And those
things last.

“Just as Amy was inspired by people who passed
away before her birth," Remi concludes, “she will
inspire people who were born after she was gone." @

MOJO FILI ርኩ

YOUR GUIDE TO THE MONTH'S BEST MUSIC

EDITED BY JENNY BULLEY jenny.bulley()bauermedia.co.uk

ALBUMS

All signs pointto the return of Durand Jones &
The Indications

Chrissie Hynde pays tribute to Bob Dylan

David Crosby’s purple patch continues

King of the hill country blues: Cedric Burnside

Treasure seekers Modest Mouse

Plus, Lump, Lukas Nelson, Yola, Paul McCartney,
The Wallflowers, Tony Allen, Sufjan Stevens,
Joan Armatrading and more.

REISSUES

Laura Nyro gets an extensive archival overhaul

How Mudhoney saved Sub Pop and charted
higher than Nevermind

lan Carr's the star

The White Stripes’ vinyl demos cache

The indescribable Annette Peacock

Plus, Alice Cooper, David Bowie, Miles Davis,
Noel Gallagher, Belgian prog jazz and more.

HOW TO BUY

Super Furry Animals: psychedelic pop thrills.

SCREEN

Biggie & Tupac: the sequel, the legend of Sam
Cooke, designated driver Dave Grohl and more.

BOOKS

Will Sergeant: the Bunnymen founder tells his
story. Plus, pop genius in the ‘80s, Buzzcocks
by song, Dylan, Nico, Miss Mercy and more.

Allen, Tony 97 | Hynde, Chrissie 82 | Portico Quartet 85
Amarante, Rodrigo 83 Hypnotic Brass Prescott, Adam &
Armatrading, Joan 83 Ensemble 88 Conscious, Dougie 87
Barber, Chris 97 Irvine, Andy 99 Real Tuesday Weld, The 84
Birds Of Maya 88 | Jones, Durand & Ribot, Marc 85
Bowie, David 98 | Thelndications 78 | Roberts, Alasdair 88
Branch, Jaimie 85 Keuning 86 Satomimagae 89
Breathless 95 King Gizzard And Scientists, The 80
Burnside, Cedric 86 The Lizard Wizard 80 Seafoam Green 88
Cain, Chris 88 Kings Of Convenience 86 | Snapped Ankles 89
Carr's Nucleus, lan 97 Lanterns On Sorrows, The 94
Changüí 87 | TheLake 95 | Squirrel Flower 86
Coloursound 84 | Lipstick Killers, The 98 | Stevens, Sufjan 84
Cooley, Mike, Hood, lump 83 | Tabane, Philip 94
Patterson & Isbell, Mack, Lonnie 94 Tucker, Rosie 83
Jason 89 Maridalen 85 UB40 87
Cooper, Alice 94 Martin, Kevin Richard 81 U-Roy 87
Crosby, David 81 McCartney, Paul 83 | VA: JCR Records Story
Davis, Miles 98 Merseybeats, The 94 | VolumeTwo 97
Dear, Matthew 95 Mistreater 95 VA: Hurdy Gurdy
Elfman, Danny 86 | Modest Mouse 80 | Songs 99
Flatlanders, The 87 | Motórhead 98 | VA: Studio One Roots 98
Fretwell, Stephen 84 Mountain Goats, The 88 VA: Alligator Records 94
Frye, Rob 85 Mudhoney 95 VA: Gary Crowley's
Fuzzy Lights 89 | Murlocs, The 81 Lost '805 Vol. 2 94
Gallagher, Noel 98 Murry, John 84 | VA:Progressive Jazz
Gillespie, Bobby & MuseumOfLlove 85 | InBelgium 97
Beth, Jehnny 80 Mvula, Laura 83 VA: Tribute To Roky

Go! Team, The 81 Nelson, Lukas & Erickson 89
Goon Sax, The 80 Promise Of The Real 84 Wallflowers, The 84
Harvey, P.J. 99 Nyro, Laura 92 White Stripes, The 98
Hiatus Kaiyote 88 Peacock,Annette 96 Williamson Brothers 89
Hiss Golden Messenger 81 Piroshka 87 | Yola 83

MOJO 77

FILTER ALBU

Courtesy Big Crown Records

Signs of the times

Feted Indiana soul revivalists embrace the dancefloor and survey a nation in crisis
on timeless, irresistible third album. By Stevie Chick. Illustration by Panik.

Durand Jones &

The Indications
ЖЖЖЖ

Private Space

SECRETLY CANADIAN. CD/DL/LP

F THE PAST is indeed a foreign country, then

Durand Jones & The Indications are such regular

visitors that they no longer have to show their
passports at immigration. Certainly, they’ve spent
long enough there to have adopted the local customs
and to be able to pass themselves off as natives.

Forming almost a decade ago while students at
Jacobs School Of Music in Bloomington, Indiana,
Jones and his bandmates were united by a love for
classic soul and R&B. Theirs was no casual, passing
fancy. Their two previous albums, 2016’s self-titled
debut and 2019’s American Love Call, reveal a

“Subtle

messages are
woven into the
fabric of the
balladry."

BACH STORY:
SUNNY SIDE UP
ө Private Space was
preceded this spring by
anew version of the
group's early B-side
Cruisin' To The Park,
re-recorded with
Mexican-American
group Y La Bamba to
salute the Indications"
early adopters in the
Chicano low-rider
community. “When we
started touring back in
2017, on the West Coast
the Chicano folks would
come out in droves to
see us, pulling up out
front of the venues in
their low-rider cars,” says
Jones. “The first time |
realised how much soul
meant to the Chicano
community, we were
playing this tune called
Should | Take You Home
by ['60s Chicano soul
singer] Sunny Ozuna and
the Sunliners [pictured],
and the whole crowd
started singing along.
They respected and
embraced us for doing
that song and giving
props to Sunny Ozuna.
When the kind of soul
music we play had gone
underground, the
Chicano community kept
it together, they were
our first supporters. For
that | will always feel
thankful and blessed.”

78 MOJO

painstaking ear for the vernacular and
technique of the soul music of half-a-century
ago. This ability is in part down to their
uncanny approximation of era-appropriate
arrangements and production methods,
achieving a level of verisimilitude that places
them in the lineage of soul revivalists
Ld መጨ: x back from Sharon Jones and the
Daptone movement, to Amy Winehouse's
Back To Black (the commercial apex and acme
of this sound), and beyond. So eerie is their
feel for period detail, these albums conjured
images of Lee Mavers of The La’s’ quixotic
(and possibly apocryphal) search for studio
gear thick with “authentic '60s dust”.

But Jones and his Indications’ gift goes
deeper than mere technique and technical
wizardry. Their songwriting is supple,
natural, never audibly reaching for a vibe it
can’t achieve; their loving approach ensures
their tunes never feel like pastiches of old
styles. And their two main vocalists span
enough of a spectrum that their harmonies
are able to conjure the sound of classic vocal
groups like The Stylistics and The Delfonics,
Jones’s deeper, warmer, stronger tones
playing off drummer Aaron Frazer’s higher-
register, gossamer-light vocals.

Their third album suggests they are
aware that this backwards focus might soon
have become a cul-de-sac. The group have

responded by embracing more contemporary

influences — but only relatively. Over the
page, Jones cites disco and “bedroom R&B”
as Private Space’s key sonic reference points,
and the album depicts the Indications
shaking loose the bonds of 1974 to enter
the headily futuristic realm that was 1977.
But only a churl would grumble over the
unabashedly retro nature of music as sweetly
satisfying and as soulfully nourishing as this.
The Indications apply their characteristic
ear for detail to the disco era on Witchoo, a

shout-out to the Chicano low-rider community that
was the first to support them. The track seduces with
the interplay between Jones and Frazer, the four-
square thump of the bass drum and the rasp of the
hi-hat, and an ambience that feels more dancefloor
than recording studio, the background whoops,
hollers and handclaps evoking the infectious party
of Marvin Gaye’s Got To Give It Up. The
Indications do disco as well as they did Philly soul.

Disco isn’t the only mode on Private Space,
however. The title track recalls the heavy, downcast
vibe of Curtis Mayfield circa Right On For The
Darkness, its epic strings billowing like brooding
storm clouds, while Ride Or Die is another lighter-
than-air Stylistics-style devotional, peaking as it
breaks down to just drums, ghostly Hammond
organ purr and Frazer’s sweet, vulnerable falsetto.
And while the group’s gift for ersatz sounds is keenly
accurate, the songs are never hamstrung by reverence
for historical accuracy. Rather, they work fresh magic
from these vintage tics and flourishes, with the
effect that their tunes sound numinously familiar, like unexpected,
unread chapters within a beloved and well-thumbed book. This
knack is best displayed on More Than Ever, which weaves together
some choice elements — the staccato horn fusillades of Curtis’s
Give Me Your Love, a bass line conversant with Baby This Love
That I Have by Minnie Riperton, and an ecstatic third-act key
change recalling Donny Hathaway’ s Love, Love, Love — into an
irre ssistible confection all its own that is perhaps the Indic ations’
finest song yet. This is very much “grown folk’s music”

But while Jones and the Indications take such ab inda
pleasure in robing themselves in the sonic garb of yesteryear,
Private Space is very much an album about Where We're At in 2021.
The openly political content might be sparing but suggests more
subtle and implicit messages woven into the fabric of their balladry.
Opener Love Will Work It Out is the sole track to make these
issues explicit, with its nightmarish vision of Jones wandering like
Jimmy Ruffin across a land “overtaken by disease” and reeling at

“modern day lynchings in the streets I call home”. Inspired by the
scale of the pandemic and the killing of George Floyd, this imagery
is startling, purposefully unsettling, and haunts the songs that
follow, inviting interpretation of their lyrics as further (albeit
veiled) social commentary. The languid, beautiful Southern soul of
Reach Out could be an offer of support to a beleaguered lover, but
“Like a willow, you're bending but you'll never break" feels like a
broader darlin of solidarity w ith the civil rights struggle. And
in context of the disorienting sense of isolation wreaked by the
pandemic, the title track’s dreamlike consummation of lust
assumes a deeper and more profound meaning, especially when
Frazer sings yearningly of being * ‘planets apart” but still “making
our escape/For a moment of ecstasy.”

Ultimately, Private Space’s message is one of hope, as spelt out by
the tracks that bookend it. The closing I Can See finds the group
addressing a “young world” with skies “turned to grey”, but with a
faith that “The darkness of night/Gives way to new light.” And Love
Will Work It Out might bear the wounds of the bleak reality of
blackness in 21st century America, but it finds redemption in the
messages of gospel, in believi ing “joy will set us free”. That opening
track finds Jones reflecting on his mission to sing “some songs to
heal some souls” — a lofty ambition, perhaps, but one this resonant
and deeply pleasurable album achieves with grace and groove.

DURAND ON RACIAL PREJUDICE, THE
WORLD, AND GRANDMA'S LESSONS.

ONES
ኩር.

SPACE

"It's hard nów,
but don’t give
up”: Durand
Jones makes
all the right
indications.

“I want my music
to heal people.”

What was your aim for Private Space?

"To expand our horizons and establish a sound that felt timeless,
rather than retro. The band's communal Spotify playlist,
‘Indications Inspirations’, used to feature Little Anthony And The
Imperials, Sam Cooke, The Shirelles - vocal groups and sweet soul
stuff. But while we were working on Private Space, it was all disco,
‘bedroom R&B’ and cats doing really cool stuff today. We wanted
to discover new things about ourselves."

Is the song-title Private Space an allusion to lockdown?

"It's one of a handful of songs we began in late 2019, and it was
about being with someone in a crowded place but seeing only
them in the room and, like, really wanting to get them out of there
so you can get it on. And then, in January, the pandemic
happened, and it took on a completely different meaning - this
thing everyone could relate to, being home alone and within our
private space. It just felt like the perfect title for the album, and I
love all the effects on Aaron's voice at the end. It almost feels like
some psychedelic tiki/jungle shit, and I'm all about it. (Laughs)"

The line in Love Will Work It Out about “modern-day lynchings
in the streets" is incredibly powerful. What inspired it?

"George Floyd was a black man in Minneapolis who was arrested
for allegedly passing counterfeit money, and a police officer
kneeled on his neck for over eight minutes and killed him. And
that happened right after Breonna Taylor was killed in her
bedroom by police. felt, ‘Fuck this — | don't want to write a song,
I don't want to talk on social media, | can't do anything but
breathe right now. | need to keep my soul and my sanity intact."
How much more do we have to take? How many more people
have to die by the hands of police for us to truly receive justice?
This shit is just exhausting. | took a step back from everything.

| knew that the universe would make the call when it was time for
me to make art again. Fast forward to last November, and | got
that call. | wrote this poem, about everything that happened in
2020, and that's where the song came from."

The message of the song is ultimately positive, however...

"That comes from my grandmother, who raised me and really
believed in what Dr [Martin Luther] King stood for. She's long gone
now, but after George Floyd died, and | was feeling despair and
doubt, I'd think about things that she would say. And that song is
the sort of thing she would tell me, like, ‘It’s hard right now, but
don't give up.’ | miss her every day. | feel like she's still here with
me, and she lives on through a song like that. People ask me if

| want to be a star. But | just want my music to heal people, man,

to recharge and rejuvenate their spirits."

80 MOJO

Bobby Gillespie
And Jehnny Beth

Utopian Ashes

SONY. CD/DL/LP

Over a quarter-
century since
Primal Scream
chased South-
ern soul per-
fection on Give
Out But Don't Give Up, their
core membership here return
to that noble quest, abandon-
ing synths and shapeshifting
for 'proper' songwriting,
strings and emotional honesty.
The duet format with Jehnny
Beth, who plays embittered
wife to Bobby Gillespie's
morally bankrupt hubbie in

a loose narrative of decline,
works with an immediacy that
possibly hasn't blessed the
Scream's every collaboration.
Heartbroken balladry, how-
ever, was always their strong-
est suit (think I’m Losing More
Than ІЛІ Ever Have, the gem
that Andrew Weatherall turned
into Loaded), and Utopian
Ashes is comfortably their best
record since the early '00s,
with guitarist Andrew Innes
and pianist Martin Duffy each
playing superbly, and, on
pained standouts such as
Remember We Were Lovers
and Living A Lie, Gillespie's
lyrics plumbing depths of
degradation that feel both real
and deeply shocking. It's not
easy listening, but profoundly
engaging and redemptive.
Andrew Perry

иши
King Gizzard
& The Lizard
Wizard

Butterfly 3000

KGLW. CD/DL/LP

i albums in nine
aJ years, those

ዬሬሙ ሪሽ records better
be different from each other,
or returns will inevitably
diminish. To their credit, Stu
McKenzie's crew have kept
things moving; on 2019's Infest
The Rats’ Nest, for instance,
branching off from core psych-
rock into apocalyptic metal.
After recent double-whammy
KG and LW furthered the
music-theoretical quest of
2017's Flying Microtonal
Banana, this latest outing
intrepidly ditches said six-
string ‘fruit’ for modular
synthesizers. Given McKenzie's
high, wispy voicing, the obvi-
ous reference is Tame Impala,
but the motorik pulse propel-
ling opener Yours flags their
own Krautrocky bedrock,
while Shanghai's tootling
up-and-down melodies, which
somehow evoke both Yellow
Magic Orchestra grandeur and

Go-Kart Mozart banality,
above all transmit King Gizzard
kookiness. Further in, breezily
integrated acoustics trigger
Steely Dan white funk (Interior
People) and their own whimsy
circa 20155 Paper Máché Dream
Balloon (Black Hot Soup). All
coalesces, near-inexplicably,
as yet another excellent album.
Andrew Perry

ПП
The Goon Sax

Mirror 1
MATADOR. CD/DL/LP

"We take on so

many forms,"
rio sings Louis
N Forster on In
V- The Stone, a

line that hints
at the unsettled, unfixed
nature of The Goon Sax's first
album since 2018's We're Not
Talking. With a pleasing lack
of ingratiation, the all-singing
trio – Riley Jones, James
Harrison and Forster (son of
Robert) - aren't too worried
whether those forms neatly
obey the laws of geometry.
Early Orange Juice and early
Go-Betweens are both present
in the terse but sensitive
indie of In The Stone or The
Chance, Desire channels House
Of Love vibrations (and Jones's
Hope Sandoval slur) but
there's a waywardness to
Temples or Caterpillars, as if
they're trying to catch Dave
Fridmann production
grandeur on a Fall budget. It's
like watching people chuck
matches into a box of fire-
works: sparks everywhere,
but - excitingly, frustratingly
- you're never sure where
they're going to land.

Victoria Segal

ШШЩЩ
Modest Mouse

The Golden Casket

COLUMBIA. CD/DL/LP/MC

Isaac Brock
is anxious as
anyone about

digital world.

2 "Peeping Toms
at every window, dangling a
leash for your throat," he

Bobby Gillespie
and Jehnny Beth
play Burton

and Taylor.

observes with his trademark
infectious melancholy on
Never Fuck A Spider On The
Fly. On Japanese Tree, he
demands, "When can we
leave?" Brock - with original
drummer Jeremiah Green,
producer D. Sardy and the line-
up from Strangers to Ourselves
(2015) layering dense sheets of
percussion, keyboards and
guitar — tries to understand
where to go, and whether he's
already there. A quarter of the
songs mention "figuring it
out". Yet it often sounds as
if Brock actually has. As he
ultimately assesses on We're
Lucky: "These are the stars
and these are the seas, these
are the places that we're lucky
just to be between." Life is a
casket. And it's golden. Both
are true. Brock apparently has
figured it out.

Chris Nelson

ШИШИШИ
The Scientists

Negativity

IN THE RED. CD/DL/LP

It's as if they
ላ never left.
"Love me for
my innocence/
My cognitive
dissonance,”
founding singer-guitarist
Kim Salmon growls through
gnarled riffing and barbed-
fuzz bass as Outsider opens
The Scientists’ first studio
album in more than three
decades. Salmon has reunited
the world-beating line-up
with guitarist Tony Thewlis
and bassist Boris Sujdovic
that peaked on 1986's Weird
Love, and their unique gift
for sounding at once
thoroughly unhinged and
ferociously in control is intact:
the crippled-R&B bridge
disrupts the drum-circle
pulse of Make It Go Away;
the angular swing in The
Science Of Suave; the peals
of steel guitar and gulping-
Duane Eddy twang running
through Moth-Eaten Velvet,
a spectral-ballad surprise.
Negativity closes with familiar
turbulence - the Creedence-
via-Can of Outerspace Boogie
-and a trick ending, with extra
rhythm-section march, that
suggests Salmon wants to
keep this band and party
going for a while.

David Fricke

Sam Christmas, Ebru Yildiz

Anna Webber

David Crosby
For Free

BMG. CD/DL/LP

THERE MAY be no better measure
of the long miles David Crosby has
travelled in excess and survival
than his reading on this album of
Joni Mitchell's title song. Originally on her
1970 LP Ladies Of The Canyon, For Free has
been in Crosby's live repertoire for nearly as
long. A 1977 concert performance on Allies, а
lacklustre 1983 album with Crosby, Stills and
Nash, betrays its time: Crosby on the verge of
his dark ages, shattering Mitchell’s crystalline
waltz with exaggerated bravura. Here, Crosby
delivers the revelation in that passing moment
with a street musician — the distance between
pure art and mere celebrity — as a pilgrim
come home, in a warm, humbled tone with
guest singer Sarah Jarosz and elegant,
restrained piano played by Crosby’s son and
producer, James Raymond.

The eternal miracle of music — as
profound inspiration and renewing salvation
— has been a running theme in Crosby's
stunning second act as a solo artist: For Free is
his fifth studio album in a decade, a
productivity he never attained with CSN (or
Y). Given the dire past that follows him in the
form of fragile health and estrangement from
those bandmates, it is no surprise that

David Crosby:
he still has
stories to tell.

frustration and delight come on alternating
tides. “They don’t tell you when you arrive/All
the things you need to stay alive,” Crosby rues
in I Think I, a mix of clouds and modal j jazz
buoyancy that turns to relief when he hears
“people singing in the rain/I start walking
towards that sound again.” Secret Dancer
opens with the cold, harsh quiet of
incarceration — an all-too-familiar memory
for the singer — and a grim suggestion of
torture: “That night when they finished/The
humans went and locked the door/And
walked away the way humans do.” But the
defiance comes right away (“In the stillness...
A time to write and sing”), echoing the
music’s seesaw of shadows and light.

Helpful friends on the album include the
Doobie Brothers’ Michael McDonald
(backing vocals in River Rise) and Steely

FILTER ALBUMS

Dan’s Donald Fagen (who co-wrote
Rodriguez For A Night). The Other Side Of
Midnight, a beguiling reprise of Crosby’s
psychedelic stargazing in CSN’s Wooden
Ships and on the 1971 solo marvel If I Could
Only Remember My Name, was actually written
by Raymond — the apple has not fallen far
from the tree. But it is Crosby's stubbornly
enduring voice — the will to live and create in
that gift after he came so close to throwing it
away — that binds the wonder and mission on
For Free. In Shot At Me, Crosby recalls a
coffee shop exchange with a soldier just back
from the Middle East who advises him on
how to stay alive under fire: “You’ve got to
find your lifeline and/Pick up your thread
and/Tell your story before you’re dead.”
Crosby may be on the road to sunset, but he’s
still got work to do.

Hiss Golden
Messenger

Quietly Blowing It

MERGE. CD/DL/LP

MC Taylor's reference for the
12th Hiss Golden Messenger
album was There's A Riot Goin’
On, penned as civil rights
protests raged but reflecting
those traumas obliquely.
Couched in arrangements
evoking the lyrical charisma of
the E Street Band and the easy
funk of The Band, Quietly
Blowing It sounds little like
Sly's bleak opus, but similarly
engages a parallel societal
crisis with powerful subtlety.
The stinging Mighty Dollar
aside (key lyric: "The poor man
loses/The rich man wins"),
Taylor measures the damages

sustained and ruminates on
paths towards redemption,
asking "What is forgiveness?
What is atonement?" on
resonant opener Way Back In
The Way Back. His answers
might seem simple - "You've
got to let someone in/That's all
that will save you" he reasons,
on the title track - but Taylor's
balm-like burr delivers a
blissful moment of healing.
Stevie Chick

ПП
Tae Go! Team

Get Up Sequences
Part One

SNOWBALL. CD/DL/LP

As blueprinted
ontheir 2004
breakthrough
Thunder, Light-
ning, Strike,
Brighton col-
lective The Go! Team construct
unfailingly upbeat sets of cut
and paste samples, live instru-
mentation and playground
melodies that sit somewhere
between The Avalanches and
De La Soul. Accordingly, sixth
album Get Up Sequences Part
One is a brightly coloured
whirligig of clattering break-

beats, chipper flute motifs and
hyperactive guest spots. It
throws up its fair share of
sunshiny treats: the freewheel-
ing Freedom Now captures the
spirit of '90s big-beat, while
closer World Remember Me
Now possesses a chorus so
sweet it should probably come
with an E-numbers warning.
Consumed in one sitting,
though, the relentlessly
Day-Glo vibes can get a little
sickly, with tracks such as
Cookie Scene's Sesame Street-
variety hip-hop in danger of
bringing out listeners' inner
Oscar The Grouch.

Chris Catchpole

Kevin Richard
Martin

Return To Solaris
PHANTOM LIMB. DL/LP

A director
whose musical
admirers
include Ryuichi
Sakamoto,
Patti Smith,
Squarepusher and many more,
Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 film
Solaris is one of world cinema's
megaliths. A profound and

mystical examination of love
and suffering set above a
psychic ocean-world, it was
re-scored by The Bug/King
Midas Sound brain Kevin Mar-
tin for last year's Videodroom
event at Ghent's Film Fest.
Distinct from the sacral mys-
teries of Eduard Artemyev's
Bach-imbued OST, the record-
ed version is a trip into the
whispering, vaporous
unknown. Over 10 tracks of
grainy electronic drift, tension
and poignancy, psychologist
Kris Kelvin's (spoiler alert)
hopeless entanglement with
an alien simulacrum of his
dead wife - almost sultrily so
on Together Again - is evoked
with creeping dread. Alone in
an unknowable universe, the
beatless dub-nebula of Wife Or
Mother accentuates the Freud-
ian horror. Could also be used
as an emetic for the slicker
2002 George Clooney remake.
lan Harrison

ШИШИШИ
Тһе Murlocs

Bittersweet Demons
ATO. CD/DL/LP
ей

op from

Though two-fifths of The
Murlocs ply their trade as

part of über-prolific psych
rock outliers King Gizzard
And The Lizard Wizard, the
Melbourne band operate
within far neater lines.

Their fifth album is sparkling
powerpop of a classic vintage.
Frontman Ambrose Kenny-
Smith's theatrical flourishes
bring to mind Sparks' Russell
Mael, while his blasts of
harmonica skirt the band's
skinny tied ship round the
earthier Canvey Island
mudbanks of Dr. Feelgood.
Indeed, it's difficult to listen
to too much of Bittersweet
Demons without imagining
the group flouncing about
on a re-run of Top Of The
Pops or The Old Grey
Whistle Test, but the crackling
energy and embarrassment
of melodic riches bursting
from each song here

makes for a persistently
joyous listen.

Chris Catchpole

MOJO 81

Shining light into
lockdown gloom:
Chrissie Hynde,
tookher time.

82 MOJO

Stuck
inside with
mobile

Chrissie Hynde

Standing In The Doorway:
Chrissie Hynde Sings Bob Dylan

BMG. CD/DL/LP.

CHRISSIE HYNDE has never been shy about singing
other people’s songs. Over the years she’s snuck all sorts
of covers into setlists or onto albums. Not to mention her
previous solo album, Valve Bone Woe, which was all covers,
from Charles Mingus to Barbra Streisand to Nick Drake.
Now, two years later, comes another covers album, only
this time they’ re songs by just one artist: Dylan.

Like Valve Bone Woe — which came about after Hynde
found a lost mixtape she’d made years earlier of favourite
songs and decided to record them herself — Standing In
The Doorway is something of a lucky accident. But where
Valve... was made in the studio, with about 50 musicians,
Standing was recorded at home, by text, with just one
other person, Pretenders bandmate James Walbourne.

Last year, Hynde and Walbourne were deep in the
gloom of their se parate lockdowns when deliverance
came in the form of the new Bob Dylan single, Murder
Most Foul. When Elvis Costello first heard that song, it
brought him to tears. Nick Cave found it overwhelmingly
comforting, When Hynde heard it, “It changed
everything. for me", she says. “Lifted me out of this
morose mood." She called Walbourne and said, *Let's
just do some Dylan covers," and they did, nine of them,
though not Murder Most Foul,

T here are songs here from Shot Of Love, Blood On The
Tracks, Time Out Of Mind, Infidels, Bringing It All Back
Home, Greatest Hits Vol II and The Bootleg Series Volumes
1-3. One of them would suggest a song; Hynde would
write the words on an iPad, sing it into her iPhone and
send it to Walbourne, who'd put it on his laptop. He'd
then add various instruments — piano, keyboards and
guitar mostly, though Hynde plays the rhythm guitar
tracks — and send it back, and so on, until the next song.

Some of the vocals sound like first takes, which gives
them an honesty (maybe a bit too honest on opening track
In The Summertime). But from here on, it's just lovely.
You're A Big Girl Now is slow and languorous, full of
feeling. There's an almost Waitsian tenderness to
Sweetheart Like You. Blind Willie McTell, as much torch
song as blues, is ultra-slow, with gentle piano, harmonium,
mandolins and electric guitar. Tomorrow Is А Long Time
is all the more heartbreaking for its stoicism. Love Minus
Zero is a pretty faithful folkie cover, with a dash of steel
guitar and birdsong at the end. But the standout is the
title track. A 7:14-minute epic, part piano ballad, part
hymn, it starts slow and tender then ebbs and swells, with
a hypnotic, dreamy instrumental. Tchad Blake (Black Keys,

U2) mixed, and makes it sound almost symphonic.

STANDING N mt DOORWAY Thinking about it, had Hynde made a covers

CHRISSIE HYNDE Sis

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album of an artist she admires as much as Dylan

መመ 10 a studio with a band and an orchestra, it might

| have been a much less relaxed experience. The
а unhurried, intimate approach helps make this
such a good listen. Beautiful.

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LAURA MVULA

Laura Mvula

ЖЖЖЖ
Pink Noise

ATLANTIC. CD/DL/LP

Third album from Mercury
Prize nominee channels SOS
Band with synth pop.

Born in 1986, Laura Mvula
jokes, "I came out of the womb
wearing shoulder pads."
Moving away from the lush
neo-soul and gospel-delia of
her first two albums, on Pink
Noise Mvula pays homage to
the '80s, starting with a much
more stripped-down, percus-
sive synth sound. Tracks like
Church Girl and Conditional
are deliberately unrelaxed,
using post-disco electro to
symbolise the constriction of
heartache and lockdown, But
her 19805 are not just located
in austere bass loops - in the
dramatic, dreamy orchestration
of Magical, the shifting keys of
What Matters (featuring Simon
Neil of Biffy Clyro), and the
revelatory feel of Before The
Dawn, there’s the glorious
sophisti-pop of bands such as
Blue Nile and Prefab Sprout.
Here her vocals are less
hemmed in by the muscular
electro-funk she's created.
Mvula is a gifted arranger with
a distinctive cri de coeur, and
this is where she soars.

Lucy O'Brien

Rosie Tucker
ЖЖЖ

Ѕискег Ѕиргете
EPITAPH. CD/DL/LP

Punchy third album from Los
Angeles singer-songwriter.

is at the crunching-down-on-
the '90s stage in its cycle, a
record that follows Phoebe
Bridgers and Soccer Mommy in
their repurposing of post-
grunge indie. Habanero and
the audaciously named
Barbara Ann nod back to
Juliana Hatfield; Dog has an
air of Kim Deal insouciance
and if you were told Different
Animals had been released

on DC indie Simple Machines
around 1993, it wouldn't

be unbelievable. (Pitching
forward a decade, there's also
a cover of Jeffrey Lewis's
Arrow). The songs are ener-
gised by Tucker's funny,
smart and often poignant
dissections of change, family
history, anger and desire,
amphibious creatures as likely
to spark a lyric as agribusiness.

It might spend a lot of time
looking back, but Sucker
Supreme feels as if its eye is very
much on the moment, too.
Victoria Segal

odrigo
marante

ЖЖЖЖ

Drama
POLYVINYL. CD/DL/LP

Brazilian stadium-filler
returns with a tale of love
and deception.

Filled with
meta-textual
observations,
Amarante's
second solo
album is a
delight of many layers, a story
with a beginning, middle and
end.He meets a dance partner
and falls in love, but soon finds
their fancy footwork disguises
deceit. At times, the singer
seems intimately involved, at
others to be commentating
from a distance, or perhaps
these events take place on a
stage - is he subject, actor,
creator or critic? Lyrically, then,
Dramais deeply involving, but
fans of Amarante's earlier
careers in rock bands and
samba big bands will find
much to delight them here:
bossa nova (authentically
Brazilian, yet imported whole-
sale from the US), tango, John
Barry-like themes, Muscle
Shoals-style funk. The author
claims to be trying to run away
from Brazil's musical riches
here, yet the result adds to
them, a sublime blend of
melancholy and desire.

David Hutcheon

Paul McCartney
ЖЖЖЖ
McCartney Ill
Imagined

UNIVERSAL. CD/DL/LP

More than a remix album:
Macca offers up his self-titled
third to reinterpretation.

If it took decades before 1970's
McCartney and 1980's McCart-
ney Il were fully appreciated —
the former pre-echoing the
handmade lo-fi of the '90s; the
latter yielding hipster dance-
floor cuts in the '00s - then the
process has been accelerated
after last year's McCartney Ill.
The remit here is an open one:
some artists, such as Beck and
Khruangbin with their art-funk
overhauls of Find My Way and
Pretty Boys respectively, build
traditional, if inventive remixes
around Macca's vocals. Others
go further and basically cover
the songs - Phoebe Bridgers'
atmospheric take on Seize The
Day or Dominic Fike's avant-pop
approach to The Kiss Of Venus,
both underline the melodic
strengths of the originals. Best,
perhaps, is Anderson.Paak's
warping of the pastoral folk of
When Winter Comes into warm,
Stevie Wonder-ish synthy soul.
Tom Doyle

Lump
ЖЖЖЖ

Animal

CHRYSALIS/PARTISAN. CD/DL/LP

a life of its own.

Victoria Segal

Curious meeting of minds' second musical hybrid.

NEWLY DISCOVERED creatures tend to lurk
at the unassuming end of the miracle-of-life
spectrum: barnacles, moths, lungfish. Animal,
the striking second collaboration between Laura
Marling and Tunng's Mike Lindsay — is a more
dramatic fusion of musical DNA, a synthetic
cryptid apparently hothoused under some
sinister green light. There are modular Moogs
and clarinet, post-punk chill and horror-film
creep; Phantom Limb smears Lambchop and
Young Marble Giants on the same slide; Paradise
sounds like a girl-group made up of John
Carpenters. It's an evolution that particularly
suits Marling, giving her words and voice a lab-
coated coolness, opaque yet urgent lyrics — *We
have some work (о do,” for example — delivered
with high seriousness. There's a slight hollowness
in its bones, a coldness under its skin, and

the experimental splices are
sometimes a bit too obvious, but
Animal admirably slips standard
musical taxonomy to take on

FILTER ALBUM

Yola
ЖЖЖЖ
Stand For Myself

EASY EYE SOUND. CD/DL/LP

Bristol singer widens her
musical horizons with
eclectic second album.

On the three albums she made
fronting the obscure British
country-soul group Phantom
Limb back in the 2000s, it was
glaringly obvious that Yolanda
Quartey had a special talent

deserving of wider recognition.

Reinventing herself as Yola
after the band split, in 2019
she grabbed four Grammy
nominations for her country-
tinged debut LP, the Dan
Auerbach-helmed Walk
Through Fire. Auerbach stays
on board for Stand By Myself
but allows his protégée
more creative freedom;
there's still a strong Nashville
influence but there is a pop-
rock sensibility at play too,
which gives the music

a widescreen sweep. Yola's
caressing vocals are sublime
throughout on a dozen
well-crafted songs that
range from chugging
country rock (Diamond
Studded Shoes) to dreamy
‘70s pop-soul (Dancing Away
In Tears) and anthemic, pining

Dramatic fusion of
musical DNA: Lump's
Laura Marling and
Mike Lindsay.

ballads (Like A Photograph).
An enthralling step on her
musical voyage.

Charles Waring

Joan
Armatrading
ЖЖЖЖ

Consequences

BMG. CD/DL/LP

Pioneering singer-
songwriter's 20th long-
player in nearly 50 years.

Few have trod
a more singular
path than Joan
Armatrading.
A revered
stateswoman
today, she was a voice in the
wilderness in the '70s, whose
trailblazing for serious female
singer-songwriters still passes
almost unacknowledged.
Deep of voice, emotion and
intent, she was always more
grown up than her peers.
Bending to neither fashion

nor time, she's still honing

her craft and almost anything
here could fit on almost any
Armatrading LP. Lyrically she's
still falling in love ("Do you
know, you're amazing?" she
coos on highlight Already
There), but the slow burn of
Consequences reveals more
nuance with each sitting.
Natural Rhythm is all finger-
clicking energy (think Me
Myself |. but aimed at some-
one else), while Glorious
Madness is powered by Kate
Bush-style piano, and passive-
aggressive title notwithstand-
ing, To Anyone Who Will Listen is
vintage Armatrading insecurity.
John Aizlewood

MOJO 83

Time to reflect:
Lukas Nelson &
Promise Of The
Real mull it over.

anachronistic fare, an impres-

sion deepened by a deadpan

cover of Lady Gaga's Poker Face.
David Sheppard

Sufjan Stevens
ЖЖЖ

Convocations
ASTHMATIC KITTY. CD/D

Sufjan and grief reconnect
on 150-minute, five-disc
electronic requiem.

Ж Carrie And

| Lowell, in 2017,
was Stevens'
intimate song-
| cycle tribute to
КАУ Я his late mother.
His father died in 2020, inspir-
ing Convocations, which takes
a very different form: 49 elec-
tronic instrumentals split into
five sections - Meditations,
Lamentations, Revelations,
Celebrations and Incantations.
Despite Stevens' committed
Christian beliefs, Convocations
is anything but churchy or new
age-y, siding more with the raw,
rhythmic and even disruptive
energies of systems music
pioneers like Morton Subotnick,

"auc i sy

Lukas Nelson
& Promise Of

stuck at home. A shock,
though, for someone

. . 1
who's spent his life on | vocal most resembles

the road, touring with

The Real
ЖЖЖЖ
А Few Stars Apart

FANTASY. CD/DI

Seventh album from Willie's
acclaimed sixth-born.

A DECADE and a bit after their
self-titled debut, Nelson found
himself — like almost everyone —

his dad and his band,
which has also
moonlighted as John

Fogerty's and Neil Young's road
bands. Lockdown gave him time to
reflect, he said, and this album —
recorded live to 8-track tape at
Nashville’s famed RCA Studio A — is
reflective, lyrically and musically. A

lot of slow/slow-ish songs. Opener

But there's swagger too: first single
Perennial Bloom, which starts out
folky before the band rocks in; and
upbeat shuffle Hand Me A Light,
with its bar-room piano, backporch
bass and classic country lyrics.

Willie — and lovely
sway-along closer Smile
are late-night beauties,
almost Stardust-esque.

Sylvie Simmons

Colourseund
ЖЖЖ

Coloursgund |!
INGROOVES. CD/D

The Cult's Billy Duffy and
The Alarm's Mike Peters,
back together again.

n Forged "out‏ ا
"A. 3 of wedlock",‏
as Mike Peters‏

describes it,
Colourseund's
raucous 1999
debut was made after he'd left
The Alarm and while Billy
Duffy was on a four-year hiatus
from The Cult. Only now, after
inevitable further sorties with
the acts that made them, have
the pair dusted down their
histrionics for Colourseund II,
an unreconstructed hard-rock
record that's often gutsier than
a butcher's slop bucket.
Though the objects and
affiliations of Peters' zeal
remain fairly obtuse, the head-
long flight of Paradise (Free
People) stirs the blood, and on
Lightning Strike, too, Peters'
voice sounds like it could
crunch rocks. Duffy, meanwhile
— still many folks’ idea of a
guitar god in Platonic form

- knows all the little tricks and
licks that excite, and when to
go Neanderthal (see Actions).
Though the odd battle against
cliché is lost, Colourseund II
wins the war.

James McNair

84 MOJO

John Murry
ЖЖЖЖ

The Stars Are
God's Bullet Holes

SUBMARINE CAT. CD.

Third solo album from
troubled American émigré.

Mississippi-

1 born John
Murry's debut,
The Graceless
Age, dealt with
p his near-fatal

drug addiction, and its 2017
follow-up, A Short History Of
Decay, followed his subsequent
broken marriage. His third,
however, begins to turn
towards the light as Murry’s
life has become more stable,
even if ‘stable’ seems a relative
term. Resident in Ireland for
five years, Murry has found
acceptance of himself, if not
peace, and while disturbance
and violence still pepper his
songs there's also a bleak
humour. Oscar Wilde (Came
Here To Make Fun Of You)
examines the 1995 Oklahoma
City bombing, the title track
opens with the line, "Of course
l'd die for you", and even a
pitch-black cover of Duran
Duran's Ordinary World is still
about Simon Le Bon's shop-
ping angst. Murry's scorched-
earth life may not have become
a bed of roses, but at last some
daisies are pushing through.
Andy Fyfe

Stephen Fretwell
ЖЖЖЖ
Busy Guy
SPEEDY WUNDERGROUND. CD/DL/LP

First LP in 14 years by 'lost"
Noughties singer-songwriter.

One-time

drinking buddy

of Elbow's Guy

Garvey, in the

mid-2000s

Stephen
Fretwell broke ground that
subsequent singer-songwriters
parlayed into far greater
success, despite his song Run
playing over Gavin & Stacey's
end credits. Fretwell's relative
lack of sales after Magpie
(2004) and Man On The Roof
(2007) was followed by years
of disillusionment taken up
with washing pots at Wether-
spoons, re-doing his A-levels,
childcare and a failed marriage.
For the ironically titled Busy
Guy, Fretwell and his guitar
were recorded in just two
hours, with minimal backing
added later, capturing his bad
life choices, regrets and hopes
at their most immediate. From
the tiniest relationship detail
to our greater place in the
cosmos, the singer asks life's
big and small questions with
grace and grandeur.
Busy Guy gives Fretwell a
magnificent second chance,
апа а richly deserved one.

Andy Fyfe

The Real
Tuesday Weld
ЖЖЖ

Blood

ANTIQUE BEAT. DL/LF

First of three swansong
albums from louche London
troubadour and friends.

The plaything

of singer-

producer

Stephen

Coates, The

Real Tuesday
Weld have been delivering
their self-styled ‘cabaret noir’
- marrying old jazz 78s to
modern electronics and wry,
boho-demimonde lyrics - for
over two decades. Now Coates
is calling time on the project
with a trilogy of valedictory LPs.
Pitched in the middle of an
outré Venn diagram of Serge
Gainsbourg, Momus and Barry
Adamson, the first of the trio,
Blood deals in cinematic arch-
ness, with Coates and three
female guest vocalists sharing
its semi-spoken narratives of
after-hours nefariousness and
elegant disaffection. At its best
-the film noir-meets-Weimar
oompah of What Happens
Next?; Skeletons In Waiting's
gypsy jazz existentialism; the
pulsing, male suitor-scorning
Promises Promises delivered
by Sephine Llo - this is know-
ing, eloquent if musically

Pauline Oliveros and Terry
Riley. Lamentation Ill could be
the Radiophonic Workshop;
Revelation 115 choral samples
suggest a simultaneously
ecstatic and unsettling after-
world, a potential equivalent
of heaven and hell; Revelation
|['5 spectral calm is the excep-
tion not the rule. Grief takes
many forms, but Convocations
- conceived in lockdown and
isolation - represents anguish
and discombobulation, without
having yet reached acceptance.
Martin Aston

The Wallflowers

ЖЖЖЖ
Exit Wounds

NEW WEST. CD/DL/LP

Jakob Dylan and co's first LP
in almost a decade.

= Its title a meta-
8. phorforthe
previous rela-
tionship bag-
gage we port
around, Exit
Wounds is a rootsy, intricately
arranged, classy-sounding
album with ‘come hither’ song
titles (Wrong End Of The Spear;
The Dive Bar In My Heart). The
lineage is perhaps more Trave-
ling Wilburys than Dad this
time out, the George Harrison-
esque motifs on Roots And
Wings and easy, Tom Petty-ish
swing of | Hear The Ocean
(When I Wanna Hear Trains) a
delight. With the Jackson,
Alabama-raised Shelby Lynne
a smouldering Southern soul
presence across four songs
and Jakob Dylan, now 51,
phrasing these literate back-
ward glances with new gravi-
tas, Exit Wounds is a welcome
return for the man last seen
duetting with Beck, Cat Power
etal on 2018's Laurel Canyon
doc, Echo In The Canyon.

It's his best original work by
some yards.

James McNair

Allyse Gafkjen

Jaimie Branch
ЖЖЖЖ
Ну Or Die Live

INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM. CD/DL/LP

Trumpeter/vocalist takes her
inspirational fight to Zurich.

It's hard to
overestimate
the power of
recent albums
on Chicago's

FELL International
Anthem label. This new set by
Branch operates in a similar
world to those by Angel Bat
Dawid and Damon Locks: one
where jazz, politics, and a
multitude of other influences
collide in a way that's some-
times raging, sometimes
ecstatic, and often a potent
mixture of both. A 19-tracker
recorded in January 2020,
Branch's latest draws on the
repertoire of 2017's Fly Or Die
and 2019's Fly Or Die Il and
adds dazzling new dimensions.
The quartet line-up is odd -
trumpet, cello, double bass,
percussion - but it proves
spectacularly flexible, as
Branch leads them through
hollering blues, temple
gamelan spaces and most
points in between. At times
she can resemble Miles at his
most abstracted and delicate,
at others a punk gleefully
seizing the possibilities of free
jazz. It makes for an exhilarating
ride: try Prayer For Amerikkka
for most of that range, and
righteous energy, encapsulated
in 14 minutes.

John Mulvey

Marc Ribot's
Ceramic Dog
ЖЖЖЖ

Норе

NORTHERN SPY. CD/DL/LP.
Celebrated Tom Waits foil

explores political and
cultural burnout.

Described by
Ribot as “more
depressing
than Mahler's
Kindertoten-
lieder”, opener
B-Flat Ontology laments and
lambasts this world’s ever-
accumulating mass of aspirant
rock stars, poets, post-modern
philosophers and performance
artists (“this one fucked his
mother on YouTube"). An
eloquent, blackly comic, seem-

Museum Of Love:
Pat Mahoneyand *
Dennis McNany

go deep.

ingly Beat prose-influenced
curmudgeonliness is key on
Hope, but it also deals in elastic
Blaxploitation funk (Bertha
The Cool), distressed beats, sax
freak-outs (They Met In The
Middle), and the kind of knee-
jerk non-conformism that can
make people dismissive of
almost everything (The Activist).
Masterfully played, cool and
deliciously spiky in tone, it
sometimes reminds this writer
of mid-'90s alternative act Soul
Coughing, but perhaps only
Ribot, bassist Shahzad Ismaily
and drummer Ches Smith
would dare hatch a 10-minute
version of Donovan's Wear
Your Love Like Heaven drained
of all whimsy.

James McNair

Museum Of Love
ЖЖЖЖ
Life Of Mammals

SKINT. DL/LP

LCD Soundsystem offshoot
up the drama over infectious
no-wave grooves,

Given the fact that James
Murphy re-formed LCD
Soundsystem in 2016, it’s
perhaps unsurprising that it’s
taken their drummer Pat
Mahoney, also the vocalist
here, seven years to follow up
the eponymous debut album
he made in cahoots with DFA
artist Jee Day (real name:
Dennis McNany). Murphy
mixed Life Of Mammals,
resulting in added punch to
the persistent beats, along
with unmistakable echoes of
his day-band. Mahoney’s
melodically edgy voice
meanwhile sits somewhere
between the swooping drama
of Scott Walker and the
yearning soul of Orange Juice-
era Edwyn Collins. Artful
arrangements take their time
here: analogue electronic
pulsing backdrops two
saxophones duelling to
disorientating effect in

Your Nails Have Grown,

while Hotel At Home sounds
like something that might

have rumbled through New
York's Danceteria circa 1982.
Tom Doyle

Portico Quartet
ЖЖЖЖ

Terrain
GONDWANA. CD/DL/LP

Londoners’ re-route,
drawing on ambience and
minimalism.

An act continu-
ously refining
their craft, the
three slowly
unfolding
pieces of
Portico Quartet's sixth album
find them conspicuously
shifting away from their jazz
roots into a more abstract
conversational zone. Each
movement pivoted around
a short, repeated motif, that
vanishes and reappears. | takes
Duncan Bellamy's hang-drum
pattern and bathes it in waves
of warm, shimmering synthet-
ics as Jack Wyllie's treated,
sometimes bird-like sax circles
mellifluously above. Piano is at
the heart of the niftier, au
naturel Il, low cello drones
underlying Wyllie's inquisitive
impressionistic figures, return-
ing later thicker and heavier,
before hope springs eternal as
he arcs and dives over 111" rich
percussive tapestry. Retaining
the spooky cinematics that
are Portico's stock-in-trade,
Terrain's meld of Midori Takada
and Sun Ra teases and tricks its
way to mantric embrace.

Andy Cowan

Rob Frye
ЖЖЖЖ

Exoplanet
ASTRAL SPIRITS. DL/LP

Jazz/ambient fusionist from
Chicago's away with the birds.

To a select
cabal of kos-
mische fans,
Rob Frye is the
woodwind
player in
Chicago's Bitchin Bajas, often
adding a little jazz friction to
their Terry Riley-adjacent
synthscapes. In another life,
however, Frye is a field biolo-
gist, transcribing birdsong
and, eventually, making music
out of it. You can hear a couple
such tunes on this terrific solo
LP, as XC175020 and XC222182
reveal an affinity between
Amazonian wrens and, it seems,
Sun Ra (check the original
tweets at www.xeno-canto.
org). With the help of various
bandmates and auspicious
jazzers such as Ben Lamar Gay,
Frye builds on the possibilities
of Bajas' 2017 Sun Ra cover,
Angels And Demons At Play,
seesawing elegantly
between synth ritual,
minimalist fugue state,
percussion workout and
spiritual jazz. Lightship Sgr
A Star, in particular, shows
how well the fusion plays out:
swinging, otherworldly, at
once kinetic and beatific.
John Mulvey

Maridalen
ЖЖЖЖ

Maridalen
JAZZLAND. CD/DL/LP

Norwegian trio's minimalist, beat-

less debut; an album with few precedents.

RECORDED IN a picturesque wooden church near the old stone
ruins of St Margaretakirken, Maridalen's debut speaks powerfully
of its scenic surroundings. Field recordings of rushing water
and birdsong detail the opening Koral, its spare harmony

given texture by Anders Hefre's intimately breathy baritone
sax. The similarly sedate Blir Det Regn | Dag, Tru? allows Jonas
Kilmork Vemoy's trumpet to lead us on a yearning journey
through their surrounds, while Inga and Vals Fra Bjølsen - both
jaunty waltzes by Maridalen's stately standards - are held down
by Andreas Redland Haga's sasquatch double bass stomp. At
once modern and sepia-toned, Maridalen is an immersive low-
end dreamworld that distils distant Nordic jazz variants (Nils
Petter Molveer, Bernt Rosengren, Lars Gullin) into a singular
vision. It acts like a powerful sedative, washing blues away.

ALSO

LEAS

Dahveed Behroozi
ЖЖЖЖ

Echos
SUNNYSIDE, CD/DL

There's a palpable
tension to
Behroozi's dark
and brooding
first studio outing,
as serpentine bassist Thomas
Morgan and resourceful
drummer Billy Mintz interpret
the Californian's Steinway
sketches on the fly: epitomised
by two wildly contrasting

takes on Chimes, TDB's spare
melancholy or Royal Star's slowly
enveloping lament. A melting
amalgam of Keith Jarrett, Vijay
lyer and Maurizio Pollini, where
abstractions change with the wind.

John Carroll Kirby
ЖЖЖЖ

Septet
STONES THROW. CD/DL/LP

Herbie Hancock's
Head Hunters is an
obvious touchstone
for John Carroll
Kirby's second LP, an
expansive, summery jazz-funk
crossover that lives and dies on
its monster grooves. While the
Solange and Frank Ocean
keyboardist's loose, winding
synth solos rarely falter, cosmic
epic Nucleo and the skittering,
Morricone-edged Sensing Not
Seeing show real breadth of
ambition, adding the pizzazz its
predecessor My Garden lacked.

Amaro Freitas
ЖЖЖЖ

Sankofa
FAROUT. CD/LP

Recorded over

ы two years, with

ы. few breaks, the
rhapsodic Sankofa
fully nails Brazilian
Freitas's elaborate compositional
style. The Monkish hard-edged
vamps and stuttering groove

of Ayeye are superseded by
pulsing standouts Cazumbá

and Malakoff, where the motorik
repetition of Freitas's off-the-
scale looping patterns threaten
to spin into abstraction over the
driving carnival rhythms of
long-time compadres Jean

Elton and Hugo Medeiros.

Emma-Jean
Thackray

ЖЖЖЖ

Yellow.

MOVEMENTT. CD/DL/LP.

A Yorkshire jazz
prodigy who learnt
trumpet in a brass
band, but also sings,
makes beats and
DJs, Thackray crams a lot into
the 14 tracks of her cerebral yet
deeply groovy debut. Be it the
spiritually questing Mercury,
funk-stomper Venus or the title
track's happy-clappy love-in,
Yellow scatterguns through
P-Funk, Alice Coltrane, gospel,
Sun-Ra, electric-era Miles Davis
and '70s jazz-fusion with glee. AC

MOJO 85

Cedric Burnside:
building ona

_ solid blues
foundation.

ቁ መመ E rising

eration

| an ecol

Cedric E Burnside

| Be Trying

SINGLE LOCK. CD/DL/DL

Readers hooked on last month’s Black
Keys-compiled MOJO CD Hill Country
Blues will be pleased to hear the
Nashville-based duo aren't the only
people keeping alive this specific strain
of music from North Mississippi. Cedric
Burnside debuted as his grandfather R.L.
Burnside's live drummer aged just 13,
soon pounding the skins on R.L.’s wild,
mid-'90s international tours opening for
post-hardcore revivalists Jon Spencer
Blues Explosion. Now 42, Cedric is the
foremost, twice Grammy-nominated
ambassador for a style of blues whose
trance-inducing, metre-flouting
otherness opposes contemporary pop's
computerised grid systems.

Following collaborative and Cedric
Burnside Project outings, his stand-alone
debut, 2018's Benton County Relic,
introduced his own lean, sinewy take on
the Hill Country idiom. Now, оп I Be
Trying, it's even more tightly coiled, its
motivational and cautionary messages
immediate and often terrifying, its roots
as ancient as the rolling landscape around
his native Holly Springs, Mississippi.

Here, Burnside gathers
further scions of the region's
greater musical dynasties:
most of the recording took
place at Memphis’ Royal
Studios, birthplace of Hi
Records classics by Al Green

86 MOJO

and Ann Peebles, with Lawrence ‘Boo’
Mitchell, son of Hi production genius
Willie and present-day custodian of
Royal. On the record’s two most
explosive tracks, Luther Dickinson, son
of Memphis legend Jim, adds electrifying
slide guitar, his bottleneck intensifying
Step In’s cry for salvation.

Burnside busts out intricate picking
throughout, and robust beats on six of the
13 tracks, but largely avoids instrumental
showboating, in favour of a stark, funky
economy where every twang and thump
serves the song's forward motion. Only
those blasts of slide, the odd lick of cello,
bass and backing singing (from his
youngest daughter, Portrika), intrude.

On first listen, this reductive clarity,
and a fierce lyrical directness, disarms.
Cedric's craftsmanship is revealed
cumulatively, and addictively, thereafter.

The two bluesiest cuts, Hands Off
That Girl and the scary Bird Without A
Feather, where his Hendrix-y tenor drops
to a John Lee Hooker moan, are covers
of Junior Kimbrough and Grandpa R.L.
respectively. Otherwise, Cedric's song-
writing is best described as extrapolating
from the blues, building on their
foundation to his own ends. While often
espousing their downtrodden worldview
(see acoustic-plucking opener The World
Can Be So Cold), his is a 21st century
perspective, on the title track preaching
self-betterment, and in romantic tunes
like You Really Love Me and Love You
Forever, revealing a vulnerability that
would've repulsed a 1930s practitioner
like Skip James.

But to contemporary
sensibilities, Burnside
presents as a genuine
one-off — a uniquely rooted
artist of rare precision
and power.

Danny Elfman

Big Mess

ANTI-/EPITAPH. CD/DL

Prolific Grammy and Е
gr

first solo album

Though he's
scored for
movie direc-
tors from Tim
Burton to Ang
Lee, veteran
Angelino Danny Elfman is
perhaps best known as creator
of The Simpsons' theme tune.
Big Mess certainly has ele-
ments of anarchic satire too, its
metal guitars, busy, fortissimo
strings and industrial textures
underpinning a politicised and
darkly comic fury as he rages
against Trump's legacy
(Choose Your Side) and
compromised ardour (Love In
The Time Of Covid). There's

a pleasing, Bowie-ish swagger
to Elfman's vocals and a steam-
punk thrust to Big Mess's
heavy, junkyard percussion,
the album's caustic, chaotic
arrangements utterly fearless
throughout 18 rather exhaust-
ing songs. The absurdist
speed-metal of Kick Me - "Kick
me! I'm a celebrity" - is the
two-minute standout, while
Insects, a reworking of a song
by Elfman's avant-garde '80s
outfit Oingo Boingo, packs
astonishing punk punch
belying his 68 years.

James McNair

ወየ
in 37 years.

иии
Keuning

A Mild Case Of

Everything

PRETTY FAITHFUL. CD/DL/LP

І founder and
uitarist’s second solo

long-player.

Frustrated by
the relentless
touring and by
his songs
being rejected,
Dave Keuning
took a break from The Killers in
2017.He returned this year
with a solo career up and
running. 2019's low-key
Prismism was a careful start,
but he has expanded his
palette on this album which
predominantly comprises
songs spurned by The Killers,
although for the most part it's
hard to glean exactly why.
There are more guitars than
were used on Prismism and if
Don't Poke The Bear, Bad
Instincts and especially World's
On Fire deploy The Killers’
driving swirl, the earthiness
those guitars bring to What Do
Ya Want From Me and the
lolloping Hangman On The
Ocean separate him from the
mothership. Yet, while he has
created his own identity and
You Can Stay is almost
a madrigal, he does struggle
to craft the massive anthems
which define the band he
founded. Perhaps that’s what
he intended all along.
John Aizlewood

Kings Of
Convenience

2595 55፡2
АЛАЯ

Peace Or Love
EMI. CD/DL/LP

So
back with

Norwegian
rst LP in 12 years.
Released in the

ገ UK on the
| same day 85
| The Strokes"
12 first EP The
= Modern Age,

Kings Of Convenience's 2001
debut album Quiet Is The New
Loud stood firm amid the
oncoming NYC rush-hour,
Bergen's own Simon And
Garfunkel starting their own
unassuming acoustic move-
ment. The slyly titled Peace Or
Love is Erlend Oye and Eirik
Glambek Bee's first album
since 2009's Declaration Of
Dependence, but their gift for
hand-turned melancholy
hasn't blunted with time:
Catholic Country and Rumours
are locket-sized short stories,
while the wistfulness of Fever
and Angel is measured to the
last millimetre. There are
moments when you can
almost hear the gurgle of a
coffee machine in the back-
ground, but Peace Or Love is
sophisticated without being
easy, a quiet storm all of its own.
Victoria Segal

Squirrel Flower

EA 0 '

X У У

Planet (i)

FULL TIME HOBBY. CD/DL/LP

Ella O'Connor Williams’
second album, named for an
imaginary new world.

Keen to shake things up after
home recording during Covid-
19 isolation, former gender,
women's and sexuality studies
student Ella Williams swapped
Arlington, Massachusetts, for
Bristol, Avon, to record Planet (i)
with P.J. Harvey engineer and
Gruff Rhys producer Ali Chant.
Like its 2020 predecessor, / Was
Born Swimming, Planet (i) (a
fictitious world people settle on
after fleeing Earth, apparently)
is an intense, slightly avant
churn from an artist who has
called herself Squirrel Flower
since infancy. Her upfront,
glacial vocals nod to Lana Del
Rey, but her backdrops are
scuzzier, be it in the Belly-esque
guitar squall of Hurt A Fly or
the moment in Night when
crunching drums take an indie
strum to another plane entirely.
Portishead's Adrian Utley adds
further layers to Williams"
complexity, and if she lacks
overt hooks, she's an expert on
atmosphere and texture.

John Aizlewood 2

raham Rowe

U-Roy
ЖЖЖЖ
Solid Gold U-Roy

TROJAN JAMAICA. CD/DL/LP

The pioneer's full-throttle
posthumous swansong.

Crowned 'The Originator' in
the early 1970s for introducing
afluid toasting style that
transformed Jamaican popular
music, U-Roy maintained stel-
lar status in the decades to
follow, until longstanding
health issues took their toll last
February. His final album pro-
ject, Solid Gold U-Roy empha-
sises his lasting legacy by
allowing him to revisit nuggets
from his back catalogue, duet-
ting with a range of notable
guests. Among the many high
points, an upbeat take of Man
Next Door with Santigold and
a playful Tom Drunk with
Tarrus Riley bridge old and
new, and the thunderous
remake of Every Knee Shall
Bow is ап epic pairing with Big
Youth (and Mick Jones some-
where in the mix), comple-
mented by a spacey Scientist
dub. U-Roy remains on form
throughout, delivering every-
thing in his relaxed yet confi-
dent style, all testament to his

enduring talent.
David Katz.

The Flatlanders
ЖЖЖЖ

Treasure Of Love
RACK'EM/THIRTY TIGERS. CD/DL/LP
Butch Hancock, Jimmie Dale
Gilmore and Joe Ely's outlaw
country supergroup returns.

It's been 12
years since The
Flatlanders’

- not counting
2012's Odessa
Tapes whose songs were
recorded in 1972, the year the
band began. According to Joe
Ely, whenever they'd make a
start on a follow-up, their solo

BLVK H3RO
bigga’s up UB40
Baggariddim.

careers would get in the way
until the pandemic forced
them off the road. The dis-
tressed, well-thumbed album
sleeve, picturing three horse-
men silhouetted against a Sun
Records logo sunset, makes
Treasure look even more vin-
tage than Odessa. Sounds a bit
that way too. Of the 15 new
recordings, very few are new
originals. Most are new
versions of classic country or
Americana songs they've
covered live over the years.
The musicianship's great, Lloyd
Maines' production's gorgeous
and there's a slew of highlights,
ranging from an upbeat rocka-
billy take on The Mississippi
Sheiks' Sittin' On Top Of The
World to the stoic Townes Van
Zandt cover Snowin' On Raton.
Sylvie Simmons

Piroshka
ЖЖЖЖ
Love Огірѕ & Gathers

BELLA UNION. CD/DL/LP

Indie supergroup's reflective
yet spirited second album.

The title Love Drips & Gathers is
taken from a Dylan Thomas
poem pondering the natural
energies inherent in human-
kind. Fittingly and doubtless
intentionally, the members of
Piroshka have an abundance of
past energies to draw from.
Miki Berenyi was in Lush, Mick
Conroy in Modern English,

K.J. McKillop in Moose and
Justin Welch in Elastica. Their
second album together is more
cohesive and less Britpop than
2018's Brickbat. More trenchant
too. The nine tracks focus on
experiences and relationships.
V.O. is Berenyi's shimmering
tribute to 4AD designer
Vaughan Oliver, who died in
2019. Scratching At The Lid is

a shoegazing/powerpop
stormer with contrastingly
biting lyrics from McKillop
contemplating the loss of his
father. The sense of coming to
terms with pasts is heard in the
music too: Echo Loco suggests

latter-day Lush shorn of the
Britpop moves. In all, a bracing
experience.

Kieron Tyler

Adam Prescott
Meets Dougie
Conscious
ЖЖЖ

The Dub Session

BACKATIVE. LP

Atmospheric technodub
collaboration.

Reggae Roast
co-founder
Adam Prescott
has been pro-
ducing music
since 2009 and
when lockdown put the brakes
on sound system gigs, he
teamed up with veteran pro-
ducer Dougie Conscious for a
series of limited edition dub-
plates. That led to this engag-
ing album, alternating fresh
studio creations with new dub
mixes of some of Prescott's
better singles, produced with
the likes of Earl Sixteen and
Michael Prophet. Everything
has been rendered with atten-
tion to detail and the mix of
computer technology and live
organic instruments works
well, songs such as Meditate
On Dub and The Message Dub
giving space for the music to
breathe, unlike the sledge-
hammer-to-nut effect that has
ruined many UK steppers'
releases. Pressed on heavy-
weight vinyl that allows for
added audio clarity, this is a
sleeper release that takes time
to absorb, sounding better
after a few close listens.

David Katz

UB40

ЖЖЖ

Bigga Baggariddim
SHOESTRING. CD/DL

Intergenerational duets with
guests from Tippa Irie to
BLVK H3RO and Leno Banton.

This is the
Robin/Duncan
Campbell
line-up of
UB40, which
sounds slightly
tougher than Ali Campbell's
version but still retains the
group's pop core. The record's
title references Baggariddim,
UB40's 1985 album of collabo-
rations which yielded the
Number 1 | Got You Babe with
Chrissie Hynde. Here they
return to that format, taking
the rhythms and backing
tracks from their 2019 For The
Many and reconfiguring them
as duets. Pablo Rider and
Slinger, who both appeared on
the original album, bring grit
and substance with the rootsy
Did You See That? and the
deejay rhyme of Mi Life Action,
respectively. Winston Francis
and Inner Circle provide a
gentler lovers touch, the for-
mer with the horn-drenched
My Best Friend's Girl, the latter
with the bouncy Rebel Love.
Lois Wilson

Various
ЖЖЖЖ
Changi — Тһе Sound

Of Guantánamo
PETALUMA. CD

The sound of ungentrified old Cuba,

CHANG

м Т CUMNTÁNAMO

direct from the fields and village squares.

IT'S LIKE finding 50 rough, discarded demos for the Buena Vista
Social Club: recorded in situ in the rural parts of the eastern
province of Cuba, where back-breaking labour is interrupted by
impromptu parties that last all weekend, this 3-CD box set,
curated by journalist Gianluca Tramontana, is arguably the first
in-depth survey of the folk music that gave birth to a revolution.
You can feel the heat, the dust and the rum, but the real magic
comes from the tres (the Cuban guitar, strung in three pairs,
with a distinctive metallic twang) and percussion, the sort of
lightning that needs to be captured as it happens, where it
happens. The uninhibited performances are a joy throughout,
while the cross-pollination with African styles that would, in
their turn, be influenced by the Caribbean gives you something

upon which to ruminate.

ALSO RELEASED

Angrusori
ЖЖЖ

Live At Tou
HUDSON. CD/DL/LP.

Recorded live in
Stavangar, this
pushes the gypsy
jazz of the Slovakian
Roma into the
avant-garde, with musical
accompaniment by Norwegian
experimentalists Kitchen
Orchestra. The repertoire is
recognisably Roma, as are most
of the vocals, but the backing
veers from deeply sympathetic
to outright confrontational.
Naturally, it ends in a wild
hoedown that makes you
wish you'd been there.

Dal:um
ЖЖЖЖ
Similar & Different
TAKTIL. CD/DL
The latest culture
exports from
J South Korea,
F ә 7. Hwang Hyeyoung
(geomungo) and
Ha Suyean (gayageum) - both
instruments are 5ft wooden
zithers - have been playing
traditional music since child-
hood, but here unite to pursue
an uncharted journey into space.
If you like Sunday morning
albums with a lot of silence then
virtuoso flourishes on gorgeous
melodies (solo Toumani Diabaté,
say), this is for you.

Angélique Kidjo
ЖЖЖ

Mother Nature
VERVE. CD/DL/LP

Having paid tribute
^il to Celia Cruz and
Talking Heads in her
previous albums,
Angélique Kidjo
has now moved into modernist
mode by teaming up during
lockdown with a younger
generation of Africans, the
biggest names in Afrobeats
and contemporary African pop,
including Burna Boy, Sampa
The Great and Yemi Alade.
It's still recognisably Kidjo,
yet feels like a genuine
attempt to reconnect with her
contemporary homeland.

Okuté
ЖЖЖЖ
Okuté
CHULO. CD/DL/LP

Debut for a rumba
collective mining
a deep seam of
Cuban traditions,
plus the melodies
and rhythms that arrived in the
dock during Havana's heyday
as a global trading nation.
The thump of skin on drum
delivers the power, but it's
their own idiosyncrasies
that make it special - the
distorted tres, bowed
double bass or stab of organ.
Heavy santería vibes. DH

MOJO 87

FILTER

Alasdair Roberts
Og Vólvur

The: Old Fabled River

DRAG CITY. CD/DL/LP

Originally convened to accom-
pany Roberts in concert, Vól-
vuris the brainchild of Oslo-
based Hans Kjorstad, whose
dextrous fiddle weaves around
woodwinds, bowed guitar,
percussion and electronics to
fashion courtly, occasionally
wraithlike Scandi-Celtic cham-
ber-folk arrangements. The
ensemble's name references
an apocalyptic Old Norse text
- Völuspá, The Prophecy Of
The Seeresses - but rather
than dramatic intimations of
Ragnarók, The Old Fabled River
deals only in wistful enchant-
ment, with four, typically bard-
ic, otherworldly Roberts origi-
nals augmented by traditional
ballads and a brace of Norwe-
gian hymnals, achingly emot-
ed by saxophonist Marthe Lea.
Opener Hymn Of Welcome
sets the tone, a delicately-spun
instrumental preamble usher-
ing in Roberts' reedy rumina-
tion on mortality and new
beginnings, his vertiginous
vocal melody wreathed in a
fjord mist of clarinets and

violins, while the traditional

revenant ballad Sweet

William's Ghost, like much

else here, is a paradigm of

restrained, spectral poignancy.
David Sheppard

ПП
Chris Cain

Raisin’ Cain

ALLIGATOR. CD/DL

A sturdy pillar of West Coast
blues society, a dues-paid
guitarist descended from B. B.
and Albert King, Chris Cain has
been making admirable
records since 1987 but some-
how failing to win a lot of
attention. Signing with Alliga-
tor may change all that. Well-
crafted original songs like
Hush Money, Too Many
Problems, | Believe | Got Off
Cheap and | Don't Know Exactly
What's Wrong With My Baby
deploy familiar blues subject-
matter - depression, distrac-
tion, the avarice and infidelity
of lovers - but Cain's ways

of handling it are always dis-
tinctive, the idiosyncratic lyrics
intricately woven with the
sharply coloured threads of
the guitar lines, the matured-
in-oak voice perfectly
balanced against the surging

Hiatus Kaiyote

Modd Valiant

BRAINFEEDER. CD/DL/LP

funk of the arrangements.
In Raisin’ Cain, this long-
serving bluesman is defini-
tively raising his game.

Tony Russell

ПП
Seafoam Green

i. ሰ

Martin's Garden
MELLOWTONE. CD/DL/LP

n of gospel-

As proven by
their 2016
debut Topanga
Ё AT TTE Mansion,
22227 country blues

and Southern
soul are Seafoam Green's
wheelhouse. In spite of the raw
deep groove they make, the
duo of Dave O'Grady and
Muireann McDermott Long
hail not from some Missouri
backwater but Dublin, and are
now based in Liverpool. With
Tedeschi Trucks Band's Tyler
Greenwell sitting in on the
drummer's stool and also
occupying the producer's
chair, they're more than the
real deal as they slide and
boogie their way through
Martin's Garden. If you need
more confirmation of their
‘chops’, that debut album
was produced by The Black
Crowes' Rich Robinson. What
sets Seafoam Green apart
from mere bar band, however,
is the easy blending of those
Irish roots into their swing,
no more obviously than on
a scorching version of
Brendan Behan's The Auld
Triangle, pitching O'Grady's
nicotine growl against
McDermott Long's holler on
a near faultless album.

Andy Fyfe

Birds Of Maya

Valdez |

DRAG CITY. DL/LP

For those of us who believe
Iggy never bettered Fun House,
the occasional appearance of a
band like Birds Of Maya is
manna from heaven. It evi-
dently takes time to sound as
brutally gonzoid as the trio do
on their fourth album (and first
made in an actual studio),
recorded in 2014 but only just
surfacing now. In the interim,
guitarist Mike Polizze has
concentrated more on his
Purling Hiss and solo projects,
and a marginally sweeter,
more accessible take on this
kind of overdriven garage
rock. There's no such respite
here, though, thanks to mag-
nificently unsanitised
ramalams in the shape of
Please Come In and BFIOU, the
latter beginning very roughly
like an МС5 take on Silver
Machine. Stick around, too, for
the full frenzied 11 minutes of
Recessinater, psychedelia
re-enacted with the sort of
hardcore speed and cacoph-
onic thuggery that's been thin
on the ground since the hey-
day of Comets On Fire.

John Mulvey

Hypnotic Brass
Ensemble

This ls A
Mindfulness Drill

JAGJAGUWAR. CD/DL/LP/MC

Richard Youngs'

# Richard Youngs’
doomed, deso-
late fifth solo
LP isalong
way from the
‘ ШВ busking New
York and Chicago streets
pounded by Hypnotic Brass
Ensemble, sons of Sun Ra
trumpeter and astral jazz pio-
neer Phil Cohran. Their sympa-
thetic take on the Glaswegian
avant-gardist's highly personal
2000 LP is a swooning, swelling
marvel that puts guest singers
front and centre. While Moses
Sumney's dazzling falsetto
doesn't need to work as hard
as Youngs’ to hit the highs, his
solitude is palpable in the
ascending motifs of Soon It
Will Be Fire, a trick only half
realised on baroque-pop bard
Perfume Genius's contribution.
Sharon Van Etten's plaintive
soul-baring on snail's-pace
closer The Graze Of Days steals
it. More sigh than song, it raises
goosebumps, like the original.
Andy Cowan

The Mountain
Goats

Dark la Here

MERGE. CD/DL/LP

nd beauteous
helast ye

Further

songs

A third collection from prolific
frontman John Darnielle since
Covid reared its head, this was
completed at Muscle Shoals by
late March 2020. It's another
strong set - polished, jauntily
sinister, with a running theme
of calamity. Folky, upbeat
Parisian Enclave features "rats
returning home to our nests"
with "spores in our lungs". The
Destruction Of The Kola Super-
deep Borehole Tower, the LP's
passionate rock-out moment,

HIATUS KAIYOTE’S third LP had
a tricky genesis — work ceased
abruptly in 2018 as singer Nai Palm
underwent a life-saving cancer
surgery. Her subsequent rude health
spools through the squiggling synths
and lyrical obfuscations of Chivalry
Is Not Dead, the sweeping pianos
and dappled jazz bass of Get Sun
(with horns and strings from
Brazilian arranger Arthur Verocai),
songs that underline their talent for
conjuring mesmerising grooves
where funk, soul, disco
and prog combine. Palm
is the star, though, her
byzantine harmonies the
crucial glue as pitches
shift and time signatures

skip, before they strip

considers Russia's effort to drill
through the Earth's crust, its
location the "entrance to hell".
Dappled, hazy Mobile is a spin
on the guilt in Melville's Moby-
Dick, made honeyed by elec-
tric piano from Spooner Old-
ham and Will McFarlane's
chiming Telecaster. Some
tracks could be Scott Walker
haikus, their melodies lulling,
their words apprehensive.
Brainy, jazzy, prescient.

Glyn Brown

Hiatus Kaiyote:
vibrant and
uninhibited.

and uninhibited, dotted with rule-
bending twists, Mood Valiant is the
sound of summer.

| their craft right back
on woozy standouts
Red Room and Stone

Or Lavender. Vibrant Andy Cowan

Tre Koch

Жж
-VASANT

88 MOJO

Laura Lewis, Mitsuhide Ishigamori

Fuzzy Lights
ЖЖЖЖ
Burials
MEADOWS. CD/DL/LP
Cambridge Krautfolk
collective's first album in
eight years.
After 2013's
Rule Of Twelfths
ሦ anda stint
backing Damo
Suzuki, Fuzzy
Lights seemed
to have abandoned their quest
to merge hardcore Can-style
gallops with surprisingly
delicate folk. In fact, the
quintet led by married couple
Rachel and Xavier Watkins
were scheming an almighty
leap forwards. When the bleak,
10 minutes of Songbird rattles
into a fierce, climactic conclud-
ing maelstrom and segues into
the gentle beauty of The
Graveyard Song (concerning
the passing of time from a yew
tree's point of view), it's the
ultimate Fuzzy Lights moment.
There's real darkness here:
Under The Waves and Sirens
(“Still | see them buried/Faces
pale beneath the ground") are
as death-fixated as lan Curtis,
while The Maiden's Call deals
with Rachel's miscarriage. In the
end, the musical battle
between the fuzzy and the light
makes Fuzzy Lights special.
John Aizlewood
ШИШИШИ
Mike Cooley,
Patterson Hood
& Jason Isbell
ЖЖЖ
Live At The Shoals
Theatre
THIRTY TIGERS. LP

Four albums, three past and
present Drive-By Truckers,
one show.

By 2014, the
scars from
Jason Isbell's
unamicable
2007 departure
from Drive-By
Truckers had healed. When
their mutual friend, actor Terry
Pace, needed help paying
medical bills after a stroke,
Isbell and DBT founders Hood
and Cooley played this acous-
tic, in-the-round, one-off
benefit in Florence, Alabama.
The stripped-down format is

Snapped Ankles:
the righteous
rabble rousers.

a mixed blessing. There’s no
room for the Truckers’ country
soul aspect and the layering
which makes them much more
than a bar band. Alternatively,
without musical clutter, the
material has new room to
breathe, and when the trio
harmonise sparingly on Hea-
thens and guitars gently clash
on Eyes Like Glue, they soar.
Better still, story songs such as
Carl Perkins’ Cadillac (Sun's
Sam Phillips ‘gave’ him one
after Blue Suede Shoes but
deducted it from Perkins’
royalties) have new clarity and
fresh poignancy.

John Aizlewood

Various
ЖЖЖЖ

May The Circle
Remain Unbroken:
A Tribute To Roky

Erickson
LIGHT IN THE ATTIC. CD/DL/LP

Late Texan garage-psych
godhead covered by friends,
fans, spiritual successors.

Tribute albums

are often scup-

pered by the

reverence

contributors

feel towards
the source material - espe-
cially when the subject is as
revered as Roky Erickson.
Longtime friend Billy F Gib-
bons's (I've Got) Levitation is
faithful right down to the
ululating jug sounds, adding
little beyond Gibbons's pleas-
ingly gruff vocals. The more
radical reimaginings fare
better, like Alison Mosshart
and Charlie Sexton redressing
Starry Eyes as a reverb-
drenched ‘50s ballad, or The
Black Angels recasting Don't
Fall Down as a lo-fi Velvets
lullaby, or Chelsea Wolfe
delivering If You Have Ghosts
as yearning, widescreen piano-
ballad. The covers favour
Erickson’s more introspective
solo works over his garage-y
nuggets, though Ty Segall's
needles-in-the-red Night Of
The Vampire impressively
out-weirds the original,
preserving its pin-eyed sense
of panic. Meanwhile, Lucinda
Williams clearly relishes her
every berserk snarl on You're
Gonna Miss Me - and her
glee is infectious.

Stevie Chick

Snapped Ankles
ЖЖЖЖ
Forest Of Your

Problems
THE LEAF LABEL. CD/DL/LP

Eccentric, rabble-rousing
groovers with a serious
message.

==] Snapped

=} Ankles are East
London’s post-
punk shamans

ЕСІ groove, who
clad themselves in verdant
ghillie suits that suggest
ancient woodland spirits on-
stage. As with 2019's Stunning
Luxury, the deleterious effects
of capitalism remain a target
on their third album. But their
scope has expanded, resulting
in this riotous takedown of
eco-hypocrisy and corporate
greenwashing to the accompa-
niment of rhythms so wildly
exuberant they could rearrange
loins. Psithurhythm is an
explosion in a tom-tom factory
with a bass line to match. At
times, like the military march-
meets-glam techno of Rhythm
Is Our Business, frontman
Austin's barked utterances
have a MES-ian quality. On
other occasions - the tumultu-
ous Teutonic throb of Xylopho-
bia - the punky, abrasive disco
that Andrew Weatherall
cooked up with The Aspho-
dells is a reference point.

Stephen Worthy

Williamson
Brothers
ЖЖЖ

Williamson Brothers
DIAL BACK SOUND. CD/DL/LP

Punk'd-up political Southern
rock from Alabama.

А$ {һе fresh-
faced rhythm
section from
Birmingham,
^ AL firebrands
ኖም A Lee Bains ше
The Glory Fires, Adam (bass)
and Blake (drums) Williamson
have had a hand in plenty of
broadsides against pervasive
attitudes in their native
Yellowhammer state. On this
breakaway debut, the siblings
take The Glory Fire's Replace-
ments-y brink-of-catastrophe
ramalama to precarious straits.
Their lurching melodic skills
instantly register on powerpop
opener Take Back Summer,
while Pressure's On marries
blue-collar worry with clang-
ing riffs and falling-down-the-
stairs rhythm to pulse-racing
effect. The gentler | Hate It Here
avoids polemical earnestness
with a country-tinged litany of
Birmingham-centric beefs
delivered in an amusingly dozy
stoner drawl. Produced by
Drive-By Truckers' bassist Matt
Patton, Williamson Brothers
feels steeped in Southern
alt-lore, charged by the rage
of Southern disenfranchise-
ment, but with humour and
kicks that sweetens the
listening experience.
Andrew Perry

UNDERGROUND

Satomimagae
ЖЖЖЖ

Hanazono
RVNG INTL. CD/DL/LP

A garden where we feel secure,

flowering in urban Tokyo.

PART OF Tokyo's long-standing acid-folk scene, Satomimagae
has been writing music since 2003, but only recording for the
past decade. Although her sound betrays certain debts to
Japanese 'new music' of the early '70s, releases such as 2014's
Koko and 2017's Kemri were less about nostalgia than ghosts, the
guileless 'beautiful young generation' sound filtered through
age, history, sadness and decay. Hanazano, which translates as
"flower garden", feels somewhat different. The ghosts are still
there, but Satomimagae's landscapes now feel more secure,
empathetic, and hypnotic, conjuring up sounds akin to the
spectral northwestern folk sound of Liz Harris's Grouper or Jesy
Fortino's Tiny Vipers. A first listen might be all about surfaces and
textures but repeated plays reveal hidden depths. As a clincher, a
portion of the proceeds from this album go to Sesame Workshop,
the non-profit, educational organisation behind Sesame Street.

ELEASE

ALSO
United Bible
Studies
ЖЖЖЖ

Divining Movements/
West Kennet Ascension

BANDCAMP/PARIAH CHILD.
CD/DL/MC

The conclusion of
E? the trilogy that
) began with the еріс

E in 2019. Divining
Movements finds the protean
British/Irish folk collective
creating vast meditative swells
of saxophone drones and
wordless vocals as if Jon Hassell's
Fourth World were moving
beyond the veil, while West
Kennet Association is desolate
pastoralist folk hymnals that
could summon the dead.
Powerful stuff.

Ayako Ogawa
***

Sanatorium

OFF/BANDCAMP. DL

A voice and piano
improviser, Ogawa
lost her husband

© last year and here
performs а series of
“cheerful-sad” works at home
with percussionist and guitarist:
vocal patterns that move
between grief and play into
hushed poems about becoming
a bird, songs of chaos and
delight about moving forward,
whatever the circumstance.

Rip Hayman
ЖЖЖЖ
Waves: Real And
Imagined
RECITAL. DL/LP
Two long-form
minimalist works
from this 70-year-
old sailor/artist/
editor/musician.
The first uses woodwind to
recreate the soundscapes of
a sea journey (foghorn cries,
the dizzying flights of birds,
air blowing through the sails).
For the second, recorded out
on the mighty Pacific Ocean,
the ship becomes the
instrument, emulating synth
burbles, amp feedback and
ghostly choirs.

Adrian Corker
ЖЖЖ
9 Ѕрасеѕ

SN VARIATIONS. DL.
Adrian Corker's
previous release, Tin
Star: Liverpool, was
· one of MOJO's
soundtracks of
2020. This digital-only mini-LP
find him working remotely with
Chris Watson, Takuma Watanabe,
Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, the Ligeti
Quartet and more, utilising the
drones, groans and ghost
broadcasts of a Russian electro
magnetic receiver as if they were
a separate collaborative
musician. АМ

MOJO 89

аы журө |

LBUMS EX

Amenra

De Doorn
RELAPSE. CD/DL/LP/MC

Belgium's hardcore crusaders'
seventh, with more moments
of delicate beauty than before.
Colin H Van Eeckhout's spoken
word confidences are offset by
vocals from Oathbreaker's Caro
Tanghe, guitar/drum onslaughts
and blood-curdling screams
that peak on Ogentroost. AC

“см

Gemma
Cullingford

Let Me Speak

OUTRÉ. CD/DL/LP

Ode To Billy Joe retold in
deadpan Sprechgesang set to
a subatomic pulse is just one
highlight on this solo debut
from half of Norwich duo Sink
Ya Teeth. See also: Wide Boys'
space pop, skewering far-right
hate with sampled flutes. JB

Peace Flag Sebastian Plano
Ensemble

Save Me Not
Noteland MERCURY KX. CD/DL/LP

WE ARE BUSY BODIES. DL/LP

Keith Jarrett and Talk Talk
vapours suffuse Saskatchewan
jazz collective's pastoral
debut. Be it cascading Human
Pyramid or pensive
Presentism, bright trumpet
and wilted sax punctuate Jon
Neher's piano improvs. AC

Argentinian composer doubles
down on enigmatic yearning
melancholy, similar to Nils
Frahm or Ólafur Arnalds. His
intimate minimalist layering of
notes on three-part Souls Suite
and the somnambulant

sprawl of Never Learned is
movingly poignant. AC

Podcasts

*. . Things should start to get interesting
right about now." Journalist John Harris
quotes from Mississippi, the Love And
Theft track, to kick-off the latest episode
of Is It Rolling Bob? Celebrating
Dylan's 80th alongside regular hosts
Kerry Shale and Lucas Hare, Harris is
great: insightful and funny — especially
recalling his close encounter with Dylan
at the O2 (spoiler: Charlie Sexton loves
The Fast Show). Online music journalism
archive Rock's Backpages looks back
over 100 episodes of their podcast: a
conversational tour of their library with
guests like writer Caroline Boucher and
her excellent Zappa and Beefheart
anecdotes. Podcasts are ideally suited to
such niche exploration as For Your Ears
Only, a series on film and TV music
hosted by actress Jodhi May and featuring
such composers as Ludwig Göransson
(Black Panther; Tenet) and Paul Epworth
(Skyfall). MOJO's Jim Irvin hosts You're
Not On The List, excavating his guest's
personal buried treasure, including our
own Andrew Male (delightful on Nada
Surf's unfashionably flannel-shirted Let
Go) and Pete Paphides' fondness for
Prefab Sprout's final LP, Crimson/Red.
Each episode comes accompanied by

a Spotify playlist.

90 MOJO

Mabe Fratti

Será Que Ahora
Podremos
Entendernos?

UNHEARD OF HOPE. CD/DL/LP
Guatemalan cellist Fratti's
second is awash with complex
harmonies and cathartic
mantras. Collaborations with
Claire Rousay and Mexican
experimentalists Tajak ladle on
otherworldly atmospherics. AC

LAWRENCE ROTHMAN

Lawrence
Rothman

Good Morning,
America

KRO. CD/DL

LA producer Rothman set up
mobile studios - in church; an
empty shopping mall - with
guests including Lucinda
Williams (majestic on Decent
Man) for this brooding, state-
of-the-nation set. JB

PLAY

Maple Glider

To Enjoy Is The

Only Thing

PARTISAN. CD/DL/LP

Melbourne's Tori Zietsch's
Weyes Blood-y vocal opulence
elevates her debut from a "big
pool of self-reflection" post-
break-up. Bleak songs, written
in a Brighton winter, are
transformed in the honeyed
light of Australian summer. JB

Chris Schlarb &
Chad Taylor

Time No Changes
ASTRAL SPIRITS/BIG EGO. DL/LP
Mellow, elegantly improvised
set of Sandy Bull-style folk-jazz
from Psychic Temple frontman
Schlarb and hyper-creative
drummer Taylor. Schlarb's crisp
production makes every note
and beat sound at once
nonchalant and precise. JM

Bob Dylan: still
rolling after all
these years.

Lucy Kruger

Transit Tapes
UNIQUE. DL/LP

Subtitled For Women Who Move
Furniture Around, Berlin-based
South African's slowly unfurling
songs may hold psycho-kinetic
power to shift heavy objects.
Highlight: A Stranger’s Chest
(darkly romantic triste, not
sturdy trunk) with its Codeine-
like rumbling guitar cadence. JB

ON
ACCOUNT
OF
EXILE
ш
Trevor Sensor

On Account Of Exile

HIGH BLACK DESERT. CD/DL/LP

Only 27 but with a voice aged
in sour mash, Trevor Sensor
deftly sketches a fictional
American drifter on songs of
personal dislocation and social
anomie; unlucky men,
grievous angels and - the
Bat-signal for folk singer-
songwriters - Bob Dylan. JB

ፕ - ІХІТУІ
5900 ሚሚ)
፲ x Í
Oy Ly 06576

Chris Sharkey

Presets
NOT APPLICABLE. CD/DL

A member of Acoustic Ladyland
and TrioVD, here Sharkey's electric
guitar and hardware improvs
veer from industrial noise (The
Sharecropper's Daughter) to
deep hymnals (Evangelist) and
blurry hypnagogia (Torpid
Metacarpals), with glimpses of
Steve Reich and Fennesz. AC

Hassan Wargui

Tiddulka

HIVE MIND. DL/LP

The Master Musicians Of
Joujouka recast as a bluegrass
band is a stretch, but Wargui
is a Moroccan mountains
musician who, with his band,
revitalises local Berber culture
on a banjo. A beguiling,
hypnotic and immensely
beautiful find. JM

Alamy

Academy Events present

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Map to the treasure

Extensive eight-album box set charts the mysteries of the influential
singer-songwriter. By Victoria Segal.

Laura Nyro
kkk IKK

American Dreamer

MADFISH/SNAPPER MUSIC. LP

N MR BLUE (Song Of Communications),

the opening track of her 1978 album Nested,

Laura Nyro reports a phone conversation
with a lover. “He said, ‘Sweetheart, look, you know
what happens when we get together/I mean I’ve
heard of liberation, but sweetheart — you’re in outer
space.” Too free, too untethered, too much — it was
the kind of accusation that followed Nyro for most
of her life. “If anybody could be miscast, it’s me,”
she said in a 1970 interview with Bessie Smith
biographer Chris Albertson. “That’s been my
problem, because if you put my music in the wrong
place, it becomes a freak.”

Finding the right place for her music — and for

Nyro herself — has never been a simple matter.
A press advert for her 1966 debut single, Wedding
Bell Blues, showed the Bronx-born 19-year-old in

1967’s Monterey Pop Festival, she wore black to
regale the West Coast flower children with the
astringent Poverty Train, its occult undertow — “I just saw the
devil and he’s smiling at me” — way ahead of the counterculture’s
sympathy for such things. (Film footage later suggested cries of
“Boo!” were actually “Beautiful!”)

While tracks from her debut, 1967’s More Than A New Discovery,
were grist to the mainstream hit machine

— Barbra Streisand called her 1971 album
Stoney End after one of its three Nyro
covers; Frank Sinatra, in hip satin jacket,
sang Sweet Blindness with The 5th
Dimension on TV — attaching the writer to
her songs made them a harder sell. As a
result, it’s tempting to write about Nyro as
if you're providing character references for

“That ‘freakish-
ness’ that Nyro
detected — the
difference
between hot-
house exotic
and potential
triffid —
becomes clear.

BACH STORY:
SHE'S A
RAINBOW

* According to Columbia
label head Clive Davis,
laura Nyro was famous
for asking session
musicians and sound
men for “blue” or
“orange” sounds. You
Don't Love Me When

| Cry, from New York
Tendaberry, was, she
said, “warm pale blue
with a few white caps on
it". But it wasn't just
colours that drove her
synaesthesia: while
recording 19765 Smile,
she was once asked by
co-producer/arranger
Charlie Calello what she
wanted a song to sound
like. “Charlie,” she said
after a moment's
thought, “I wantit to be
like my chair.”

92 MOJO

her, pushing for that big-time showbusiness
job she never quite landed. Bob Dylan loved
her chords. Stephen Sondheim was a fan.
“Laura Nyro, you can lump me in with,”
Joni Mitchell told MOJO in 2003. Since her
death from ovarian cancer in 1997, aged 49,
there have been regular flashes of Nyro
worship — not least her 2012 induction into
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by a teary
Bette Midler. Nyro remains cultish
ae with Mitchell, or Carole King
(who influenced her profoundly and who
she influenced right back), but for an artist
often described as “unsung”, she frequently
comes through surprisingly loud.

American Dreamer collects her first seven
albums — including the remarkable run of
Eli And The Thirteenth Confession, 1969's New
York Tendaberry, and 1970's Christmas And The
Beads Of Sweat — with an additional disc of
demos, live tracks and single versions. In the
process, it underlines why Nyro was never

really destined for the same blue- chip recognition
as Mitchell or King. It wasn't her voice: as Charlie
Calello, co-producer of Eli And The Thirteenth
Confession and 1976's Smile, comments, *when you
take into consideration some of the people who
were her contemporaries, like Dylan, come on."

Instead, that “freakishness” that Nyro detected
— the slight but vital different between hothouse
exotic and potential triffid — is what becomes clear.
Even when Nyro is working most tightly along
soulful Brill Building pop lines on More Than А New
Discovery, there's an instability to her songs, a sense
that the churc hy longing of He's A Runner or I
Never Meant To Hurt You's radical empathy could
spill over, burst banks. By the time of New York
Tendaberry, it's a flood. It applies to the era's cosmic
joy, too: both Nyro's Stoned Soul Picnic and Joni
Mitchell's Chelsea Morning are soaked in colour-
wheeling sensory bliss, yet Nyro, making up her own
words (“сап you surry?"), seems to have taken all the
supporting walls out of her song, risking collapse.

When she tries for another '60s staple, the
protest song, it's equally unstable. Save The
Country, from New York Tendaberry (another made-
up word), was inspired by the assassinations of John
F and Robert Kennedy, a | gospel call for cleansing.
Yet it changes pace wildly, less a song for marching
than a rapturous hurtle towards salvation. Often, it feels as if Nyro
is being chased by something. The devil, or Lucifer, appears
repeatedly; Eli's Coming, popularised by Three Dog Night, might
be about a faithless man, but there's an almost supernatural threat
in the repeated name, the warning piano. On her fourth album's
Beads Of Sweat, this thumb-pric king quality is heightened again:
“Something’s coming I know/To devastate my soul.” With
Blackpatch (“Lipstick on her reefer/Waiting for a match”) and
Been On A Train’s drug-related death, Sinatra and Streisand are
long gone, but Lou Reed might have understood.

After her fourth album, however, that intensity partially lifts.
Produced by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, Gonna Take A Miracle is
a collaboration with her friends Labelle, a fabulous tribute to her pop
roots. It includes a brilliantly raw cover of The Shirelles’ I Met Him
On A Sunday; a carnal You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me (matched
by the demo of her own Emmie) and a version of The Charts’
Désiree that predicts the erotic charge of Amy Winehouse’s
Valerie. For once, it feels as if she’s rooted somewhere.

From here, however, her career was formed of retreats and
returns. She married and divorced before 1975’s Smile, a record
that begins with one spoken word — “strange” — before launching
into a mellow cover of The Moments’ Sexy Mama. There’s a new
smoothness, a recognition this is now a world with Carly Simon
in it, yet you could hardly call Money or I Am The Blues subdued.
Nested, meanwhile, released two months before her son's birth
in 1978, comes with softer, moon-and-New-York-City piano,
yet Child In A Universe and American Dreamer hit upon
war and peace, fight and flight, Nyro's voice still pushing
through the mellow haze.

It is a lot, this eight-album demand to live and listen at her
pitch. Yet as Nyro, mocked for her liberation in Mr Blue, retorts,
“Гуе been studying the radar in the sky/I can almost run, fly/
Listen like the animals do... yes, Pm ready for you." The
mainstream might not have been ready for her, but American
Dreamer emphasises once more exactly where her place should be:
out in the world, front and centre, not a freak but a true star.

”

Philip Tabane
And His
Malombo
Jazzman

ЖЖЖЖ

The Indigenous
Afro-Jazz Sounds Of...

WE ARE BUSY BODIES. LP

Restlessly experimental 1969
debut by guitarist hailed as
South Africa's Sun Ra.

Five years after he took first
prize at South Africa's Cold
Castle Jazz Festival, Philip
Tabane captured his spirited
brand of Malombo jazz in
one-take studio sessions.

A sparse but spirited two-way
with percussionist and thumb
pianist Gabriel 'Sonnyboy'
Thobejane, the breathy chants,
lonesome pennywhistle and
resonant cow-hide drums of
Babedi and Dithabeng build
on traditional Ndebele and
Sepedi music's healing proper-
ties, and ache with reflective
stillness. A wild card guitarist,
Tabane's Gibson semi-acoustic
unexpectedly flits from deli-
cate melodies to fleet mercu-
rial runs and darkly menacing
chords amid Inhliziyo's two-
note pulse and Kathloganao's
almost Celtic interplay,
numbers that sound like they

FILTER REISSUES

were plucked from the ether.
Restorative and dynamic,
Tabane's sparky yet soothing
touch is a salve to the soul.
Andy Cowan

Alice Cooper
oc

Three Temptations
From Alice
RETROWORLD. CD

Alice's Trash, Hey Stoopid and
The Last Temptation albums
corralled on a 2-CD set.

Released in
1989, Poison
| washell-bent
| on becoming
E; Cooper's first
Р Тор 10 single
since 1977's You And Me,
hence the recruitment of hair-
metal-affiliated writer Des-
mond Child to help commer-
Cialise Alice, much as he'd
helped commercialise Aeros-
mith circa Dude (Looks Like A
Lady). With its cod-horror
verses and telegraphed cho-
rus, Trash's Poison reached
Number 2 in the UK, but the
heavy friend guest-list and
co-writer credits had perhaps
lost focus by 1991's Hey
Stoopid, wherein Feed My
Frankenstein featured Steve
Vai, Elvira: Mistress Of The Dark
and a writing credit for Zodiac
Mindwarp. The jewel here is
1994's The Last Temptation,
with its conceptual nod to
1975's Welcome To My Night-
mare. On TLT, Alice regained
his Detroit edge and made
another great single, the dis-
gruntled, disenfranchised yoof
anthem Lost In America.
James McNair

ALICE COOTER
там Tow stove Row Mutt

Various
ЖЖЖЖ

Сагу Crowley's
Lost 80s Vol. 2

DEMON. CD/DL/LP

More cult classics and rare grooves

from the radio DJ's '80s.

ANOTHER demonstration of just
how generative the '80s music scene
could be: these 65 choice tracks
over four discs span soulful jazz pop,
post-punk funk, Brit funk, reggae
and electro. Disc one draws a line
from The Style Council's Mick's Up
to Nick Heyward's Cafe Canada,
both mood-stirring, keyboard-led

instrumentals. Discs two
and three take in
innovative covers:
Bananarama doing the
Sex Pistols; the Kane
Gang doing The Staple
Singers; The Staples
doing Talking Heads (an
astonishing Life During
Wartime). Disc four is
different again, aimed at

the dancefloor with 12-inch mixes
of Clint Eastwood And General

Saint's phenomenal deejay
cut Another One Bites The
Dust, The Valentine Brothers’

The Merseybeats
And Merseys
ЖЖЖЖ

| Stand Accused:

The Complete
Merseybeats and
Merseys Sixties

Recordings
GRAPEFRUIT. CD/DL

Mersey pop meets the beat
boom: The Beatles once
supported them.

Close harmonies were intrinsic
to The Merseybeats, with
co-leaders Tony Crane and
Billy Kinsley’s vocals intertwin-
ing almost telepathically on
their superb series of ‘60s hits:
It's Love That Really Counts; |
Think Of You (their biggest, it
reached the Top 5); Don’t Turn
Around; Wishin' And Hopin'.
But their B-sides and the On
Stage EP revealed a group
capable of the rough stuff with
enthusiastic readings of Long
Tall Sally, Shame et al remind-
ing us that they cut their teeth
in Liverpool's clubs and pubs.
When the group split in 1966,
Crane and Kinsley formed The
Merseys, best known for the
classic Sorrow, later covered by
Bowie. This double CD collects
everything by the two groups

modern soul influencer Money's

Too Tight To Mention and the
magnificent Monster Jam by
Spoonie Gee And The Sequence.

plus their various spin-offs
including erstwhile Mersey-
beat member John Gustafson's
in-demand Polydor 45s.

Lois Wilson

Various

ЖЖЖЖ

Alligator Records:

50 Years Of Genuine
Houserockin' Music
ALLIGATOR. CD

The autobiography of the
Chicago-based blues label in
a 58-track 3-CD set.

In 1971, when

> Bruce Iglauer
ALLIGATOR
RECORDS

bet his new
label's shoe-
string all on
Hound Dog
Taylor, he could not have imag-
ined that Alligator Records
would be around to celebrate
50 years later, with 350-plus
other releases besides. But
here they are: the original
heavy-hitters Koko Taylor,
Albert Collins, Son Seals and
Lonnie Brooks; the stalwarts
Shemekia Copeland, Marcia
Ball, Elvin Bishop, Rick Estrin,
Tinsley Ellis and Lil' Ed & The
Blues Imperials; the slightly
left-field Holmes Brothers,
Mavis Staples and C.J. Chenier;
and the heart-stirring second-
wave generation of Janiva
Magness, Toronzo Cannon,
Selwyn Birchwood and
Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram.
In both music and notes, the
collection not only tells a
story of hard work and
hard-won success, but like a
kaleidoscope refracts many
of the shifts of tone and

L3
ያ Ready for the 806:
! (from left) Sean
= Rowley, Dave
А | Pearce, Dr Robert,
Gary Crowley.

Lois Wilson

94 MOJO

colour, style and subject-
matter, in the blues of our time.
Tony Russell

The Sorrows
ЖЖЖ

Pink, Purple, Yellow &
Red: The Complete

Sorrows
GRAPEFRUIT. CD/DL

Singles, albums, foreign
language recordings, live
tracks, outtakes and rarities.

The Coventry
outfit's entire
recordings,
together for
the first time.
The essential
parts: the Don Fardon led
'classic' line-up's 1965 UK LP
Take A Heart, a tough freakbeat
paragon including the brood-
ing title track. Also, the four
previously unissued Joe Meek-
produced cuts from 1964, no
messing R&B covers including
harmonica-drenched takes on
Hoochie Coochie Man and
Don't Start Me Talkin’. Then the
marginalia, mostly sans Fardon,
when the group moved to Italy
andit gets confusing, with
various incarnations experi-
menting in heavy psych. The
best bits: Ypotron, their 1966
theme to the Italian spy film of
the same name; 1968's nine-
track demo album; '69's Italy-
only Old Songs, New Songs. The
inclusion of a 1980 reunion gig
seems wholly unnecessary.
Lois Wilson

Lonnie Mack
ЖЖЖЖ
Sa-Ba-Hoola!

Two Sides Of Lonnie
Mack — Fraternity
Recordings 1963-1967

ACE. CD/DL

A best-of the guitar
pioneer's early rockers.

When Rolling
Stone pro-
claimed Mack
"in a class by
himself" in
1968, his 1963
debut LP The Wham Of That
Memphis Man was re-released
and Mack was resurrected
from obscurity. Revered by Jeff
Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan and
Bootsy Collins, his instrumen-
tals of Chuck Berry's Memphis
and his own Wham! prove why:
flashy, lightning-fast runs;
whammy-bar mastery; thrilling
dynamics; orgasmic resolution.
This 14-song anthology is
divided by instrumentals (those
two included) and vocals - he
was also one of the mightiest
blue-eyed soul men. Grounded
in gospel, he’s pleading, testi-
fying, screaming and sweating
about the big stuff on Where
There's A Will. His voice shared
with his guitar the valleys-and-
peaks approach within a song's
confines. But it was his innova-
tive pyrotechnics up and down
the frets that changed the
language of rock forever.
Michael Simmons

Barry Plummer

Michael Lavine

Dig the
dirt

The album that saved Sub Pop
gets a deluxe 30th anniversary
reissue. By Stevie Chick.

Mudhoney
ЖЖЖЖ

Every Good Boy
Deserves Fudge

SUB POP. CD/DL/LP

THEY’D EFFECTIVELY coined
grunge’s gnarly sound and deadpan
attitude, but just as commercial reward
approached Seattle’s homegrown scene,
pioneers Mudhoney seemed to have run
aground. Guitarist Steve Turner felt they’d
outlived their purpose. Drummer Dan Peters
was moonlighting with Nirvana and Screaming
Trees. Frontman Mark Arm was falling
deeper under the spell of heroin. And Sub
Pop — the label that had cannily marketed
grunge — was facing bankruptcy.

Such downer vibes might explain why
Mudhoney’s first attempt at their second full-
length LP fizzled out, but the true reason is
more prosaic: the modern, 24-track studio

they'd been recording in. Turner now grumbles

that these early tracks — included on this deluxe
30th anniversary reissue, along with B-sides
and outtakes — “didn’t have the dirt”. So
Mudhoney relocated to the more primitive Egg
Studio, in | the basement of producer Conrad
Uno and equipped with an 8-track recording
desk built for Stax Records back in the ’60s.
At Egg, Turner took the wheel and nudged
Mudhoney away from Seattle’s trademark "70s

heaviness, towards his beloved '60s garage
rock, wah wah pedals benched in favour of
more era-correct instruments. So the stop-
start riff of Who You Drivin’ Now? — swiping
at both an unnamed Seattle scenester and the
Pinto, a Ford automobile notorious for
catching fire — was accented by Arm’s Farfisa

organ. Turner wheezed acidic harmonica over

Move On and blew plaintive Dylanesque
counter-melodies on affecting rumble Pokin’
Around, one of a clutch of songs on ...Fudge
that showcased songwriting that had matured
beyond the blackly comedic rut-rock of their
origins. Broken Hands, meanwhile, built the
harmonic outro to Neil Young’s Cinnamon
Girl into a smouldering epic that remains one
of Mudhoney’s finest.

Released in July 1991, the initial sales of

. Fudge - 100,000 units, which Sub Pop's

Tome Pavitt considered akin to platinum

Mudhoney: getting
ready to outlive

the trend they set.

status for an indie album — won the label a
momentary reprieve. However, the actual
multi-platinum success of Nirvana’s Nevermind
secured Sub Pop’s future, that breakthrough
album resulting from an upgrade to a big-
time studio where their sound was buffed up
to a radio-friendly sheen.

As the grunge era wore on and punk rock
finally “broke”, ...Fudge's raw edges and
freewheeling garage-rock moves sounded
further and further adrift from the zeitgeist.
Instead of grasping the moment, they’d made
an album which — with its canny songcraft,
biting wit and quest for “the dirt” — remains
timeless. Scorning bogus concepts like
“careerism” and “professionalism” to follow
their instincts and their passions, Every Good
Boy Deserves Fudge finds a group wise enough
to outlive the trend they set, who burn
brightly and brilliantly to this day.

Lanterns On
The Lake
ЖЖЖЖ

Gracious Tide,
Take Me Home

BELLA UNION. CD/DL/LP
Tenth-anniversary makeover
ofthe stately Tynesiders'
debut album.

A decade on
from its first
appearance,
Lanterns On
The Lake's
debut album is
reissued with the fresh context
of knowing what came later.
Early on, the Newcastle outfit
described themselves as
“cinematic indie". Here, there's
a folkiness (viz, If I've Been
Unkind) which was later lost.
Also, the glitchiness and
sepulchral approach of
Iceland's mum (The Places We
Call Home). Hints of Mazzy Star
too. Despite the exquisiteness,
what's now apparent is that
the building blocks had not
yet fused. During the ensuing
and steady march, constant
honing ensured it all gelled
and, last year, dramatic fourth
album Spook The Herd was
shortlisted for the Mercury
Prize. With five previously
unheard bonus tracks from the

album sessions (the spectral
Sapsorrow is great), this is a
welcome reminder of how
single-mindedness can bring
artistic rewards.

Kieron Tyler

Matthew Dear
ЖЖЖ

Preacher's Sigh &
Potion: Lost Album

GHOSTLY INTERNATIONAL. CD/DL/LP.

Texan electronic musician's
2009 LP, now off the shelf.

Back in 2008/9,
| in-between
releasing his
third and

Î! fourth albums
E - 20075 housey
Asa Breed and the moody
cinematic pop of 2010's Black
City - Matthew Dear experi-
mented with a different
direction. Borrowing his
country guitar-playing father's
instruments and taking a loop-
based approach to traditional
finger-picking styles, often
layered over sparse beats, he
produced 11 tracks before
deciding not to release them.
In some instances, it's easy to
see why, with the scrappy
post-modern blues of Crash
And Burn being a less success-

ful take on Beck's early records.
Far more cohesive are Muscle
Beach’s tale of a juvenile delin-
quent (with his "fingers caught
in the windowsill") and the
sub-aqueous atmosphere of
mumbly bad habits confes-
sional Supper Times. But over-
all, Preacher's Sigh & Potion...
has a sketchy feel that will
likely only appeal to those
keen to hear every stage of
Dear’s musical development.
Tom Doyle

Mistreater
ЖЖЖЖ
Hell's Fire

ON THE DOLE. LP

Ultra-obscure Ohio stoner-
metal find from 1981.

Courtesy of
the Swedish
imprint behind
the Jobcentre
Rejects comps
of rare early-
'80s New Wave Of British
Heavy Metal, here’s a stand-
alone US heavy metal reissue
to die for. Mistreater hailed not
from Brum or Wolverhampton,
but Creston, Ohio, a backwater
‘village’ sandwiched between
Cleveland and Akron. Their
fret-mangling leader, Larry

Nottingham, much like Tony
lommi and other axe-wielding
Midlanders, was a blue-collar
industrial worker who, at 21,
corralled his comrades to blast
out Hell's Fire in a 17-hour
weekend at Indiana’s cheapo
700 West facility and self-
release a thousand copies, all
for just $1,700. Woefully retro
in aregion then fecund with
punk rock, this irredeemably
hard-rocking quartet audibly
doted on Deep Purple's
Machine Head and all things
Sabbath, yet, however unwit-
tingly, also packed the feral
urgency of Cleveland punkers
The Dead Boys, making for a
uniquely steely listen today.
Recorded entirely live but for
Curt Luedy's Gillan-esque
keening, these nuggets
achieve singular heaviosity.
Andrew Perry

Breathless
ЖЖЖЖ

Between Happiness
And Heartache
TENOR VOSSA. DL/LP

30th anniversary pink vinyl
edition of London quartet's
fourth and finest album.

There are voices suited to
imparting bittersweet regret,

and then there are voices that
sound irredeemably bereaved,
like Dominic Appleton. He
ensures that Breathless have
always veered much closer to
heartache than happiness, just
in case song titles like | Never
Know Where You Are and Help
Me Get Over It haven't made it
plain enough. Virtually a con-
cept album about unrequited
love, the record also chooses
for its sole cover The Only
Ones’ rarity Flowers Die (“I feel
so helplessly alone, alone,
alone, alone”). Appleton
employs no masking meta-
phors, neither do his gorgeous
melodies try to put on a brave
face. That said, Between... is as

liable to flex its muscles in a
gothic, dreampop fashion as it
is exposing delicate veins and
broken hearts. Comes with a
downloadable bonus track of
1992's B-side Everything | See.
Martin Aston

MOJO 95

Completely at odds:
Annette Peacock, on-
stage at the Bataclan,
Paris, 1981.

Shake a tail feather

T’S SO TOUGH to pin down what

Annette Peacock does, I’ve rewritten

this column three times — so please t take
everything I’m about to say with a pinch of
salt! Born in 1941,
practitioner in the New York jazz avant-
garde by the time she moved to London in
the late ’70s. She'd also been a pioneer of
electronic music, with second husband
Paul Bley, an early adopter of the Moog
synthesizer, using it to distort and colour
her singing voice as early as 1969. She is

Peacock was a seasoned

repor tedly the person who turned David
Bowi 1e onto electronic music (and may have
introduced him to her fr iend, pianist “Mike
Garson), while they were both signed to
RCA. She made the hip I’m The One there
in 1972, just after The Paul Bley Synthesizer
Show, an album entirely comprising her
compositions. (Bley had form for this:
Barrage i in 1965 was composed by his
previous wife, Carla Bley.) In the future
she’d make records that have elements of
chamber music, opera, and musique concrete;
her output is essentially category-free,
though rooted in the mood of jazz. On a
brace of albums for the curious Aura label,
now reissued by Sundazed, she crafted rock
and funk grooves as the basis for stream-of-
consciousness lyrics, sometimes sung,
sometimes intoned like a sleepy sermon.
For X-Dreams (Aura/Sundazed)
her second LP, recorded in London and

96 MOJO

released in 1978, she mothballed the synth
and the free jazz and used the current cream
of session musicians — among them rock
guitarists Mick Ronson and Chris Spedding,
drummers Bill Bruford and John Halsey and
sax player George Kahn — to conjure c candid
ruminations about sexual politics. My Mama
Never Taught Me How To Cook utilises a
languid funk which Peacock wails over like
Betty Davis: “I’m not good at the wheeling,
not much better at the
dealing, but I’m a fantastic
ride.” Then she caps it with
“Hey man, my destiny is not
to serve/I’m a woman, my
destiny is to create.” The
11-minute Real & Defined
Androgens is reminiscent

of Roxy Music’s The Bogus
Man, a mid- tempo groove
rolled around and around
while it becomes
increasingly noisy and
frenetic, Peacock’s seductive “|
speak-sing delivery gently
turning up the heat.

Her breathy singing
voice = like a blend of Dusty
Springfield and Peggy Lee
— is featured on the
mellower second side for
This Feel Within and
gorgeous Too Much In the
Skies, where her lyrical
piano playing really
connects. A sleazy,
reharmonised crack at

Elvis’s Don’t Be Cruel is

ANNETTE PEACOCK

akin to one of John Cale’s vaguely irreverent
revisits. I recall this appearing as a single in

1978 and it feeling completely at odds with

what was happening at the time, but all the

more weirdly exotic for it.

The following year’s companion piece,
The Perfect Release (Aura/Sundazed)
is funkier musically, more ambivalent
lyrically. “Life’s hopeful between the
thighs,” she sighs on The Succubus, though
on Love’s Out To Lunch she
notes, “There’s more to love
than the balling.” American
Sport is scathing about

X-DREAMS

capitalism, the reggae-
tinged Rubber Hunger
appears to be about
someone addicted to sex
toys, and on lengthy, slap-
bass closer Surv val she
casts herself as a distaff
Gil Scott-Heron speaking
of personal revolution.
“All leaders are
opportunists... drawn

by the cry of a multitude,”
she declares.

These idiosyncratic
albums, long out of print on
vinyl, come in handsome
new editions, mastered at
Third Man, pressed on lurid
coloured vinyl, and, in the
case of X-Dreams, with
added sleevenotes. Still
unclassifiable, their unique

spirit and mesmerising
mood holds up very well.

Dalle APRF

Chris Barber
ЖЖЖЖ
A Trailblazer's Legacy

THE LAST MUSIC COMPANY. CD/DL

Magnificent tribute to the
late Godfather of British
jazz, blues and skiffle.

Barber's death
earlier this year at
the age of 90
closed an impor-
tant chapter in
post-war British
popular music; an epoch indel-
ibly shaped by the Welwyn
Garden City trombonist’s
adventures in black American
music that began in the 1950s
and which inspired several
generations of young British
musicians, including The
Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
Spanning 1951-2018, this 4-CD
compendium brings together
essential studio and live
recordings that attest to Bar-
ber's pioneering spirit via his
exploration of New Orleans-
style 'trad jazz' and his role in
popularising skiffle (he played
bass on Lonnie Donegan's
landmark Rock Island Line).
Among the highlights are
collaborations with Sister
Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Terry &
Brownie McGhee, and Van
Morrison, while Alyn

Shipton's 18,000-word essay
and a stunning array of archival
photographs helps to bring
Barber's remarkable story alive.
Charles Waring

Various

ЖЖЖЖ

The Last Shall Be First:
The JCR Records

Story, Volume Two
BIBLE & TIRE. CD/DL

Another 18 nourishing
tracks of 'lost' gospel from
small Memphis label.

Almost exactly
a year ago, the
first instalment
of highlights
from JCR, a
Memphis label
founded by local pastor Juan
Shipp to house off-cuts from
his other label, D-Vine Spiritual,
was testament to a man of
uncompromising judgement.
Although the acts 'relegated'
to JCR were often raw, they
were honest, believable and
definitely not untalented, their
soul-flavoured gospel driven
by uplifting performances.
Here, old friends return - The
Calvary Nightingales, who'd
opened Volume One, The Dixie
Wonders, The Bible Tones, the
excellent Spiritual Harmonizers
-and there are seven welcome
new additions. The Friendly
QC's' Let's Praise His Name
struts along at a fierce pace,
the tempo set by lithesome
bass guitar, while The Sons
Of Harmony and The Silver
Wings feature beefy lead
voices and The Breckenridge
Singers' Man On The Moon
foresees that "some day
there'll be lots of people living
2 onthe moon."
5 Geoff Brown

Tony Allen &
Africa 70
ЖЖЖЖ

No Accommodation

For Lagos
COMET. LP

The Afrobeat drummer's last
solo gasp with Fela.
E ጩፕፒ:::: Continuing

ЕЕ У their compre-
M hensive Tony
li Allen reissue
ЖЫ 7 2 programme,
DO Mu the latest
offering from French label
Comet is No Accommodation
For Lagos, the third of the solo
albums that drummer Allen
recorded with Africa 70 behind
him and Fela Kuti in the
producer's chair. On the A-side,
over a tight Afrobeat groove
that is entirely in keeping
with Fela's late-'70s releases,
vocalist Candido Obajimi sings
of the chronic housing short-
ages facing new arrivals in the
Nigerian capital, with Fela on
didactic electric piano and
Allen procuring a complex
rhythmic backbeat. On the
more fluid B-side, the musings
on Afrobeat's content and
form titled African Message
points to the evolving hybrid
style that Allen would further
develop with his African
Messengers on subsequent
release No Discrimination,
which is also released in the
series, the latter marking his
definitive break with Fela.

David Katz

Various
ЖЖЖЖ

Utopic Cities:
Progressive Jazz In
Belgium 1968-1979

SDBAN. CD/DL/LP

Fusion and avant-garde
gems from a revolutionary
era in Belgian jazz.

As a compan-
ion piece to
2017's Let's Get
Swinging, this
esoteric, eclec-
2 tic selection
shows how Belgian's jazz
musicians mobilised after
1968's riots, surprised to find
their guerrilla take on the US
avant-garde embraced by
rebellious youth. While that's
more than covered by adven-
turous, genuinely out-there
turns by Brussels Art Quintet,
Raphaél and Kenny Clarke-
Francy Boland Big Band, its
early jazz fusions impress
even more. Electric pianist
Marc Moulin sets the bar high
(both with Placebo and amid
the wailing hippopotamus
cries of Tohubohu), matched
by Solis Lacus's funky title
track, a nine-minute stunner
from Koen De Bruyne, and Cali-
fornian pianist Ron Wilson's
arch vocal turn with Open Sky
Unit. Repeat credits speak of
the Belgian scene's often-
incestuous nature - it
effectively became a jazz
island, entire of itself.

Andy Cowan

FILTER REISSUES

Core values

Carr is just one of seven stars
on a sensational proto hip-hop
UK jazz-rock jamboree.

By Ben Thompson.

lan Carr’s Nucleus
ЖАЖА

Roots

BEWITHRECORDS. CD/DL/LP

“TT’S BASICALLY already hip-hop." Thus
one veteran UK turntablist explains the
enduring allure this previously hard-to-
locate 1973 Vertigo landmark’s amazing
title-track has for the blunted beats
fraternity. Edited down from its original
40 minutes to a pithy nine and a half,
Roots is at the same time one very long
breakbeat, and as close as fully home-
grown British jazz ever got (pretty damn
adjacent in this case) to the entrancing
fluidity of Miles Davis in his John
McLaughlin phase. The best I can do for
a capsule description is Fela Kuti trying
to cover Billy Cobham’s Spectrum with
David Axelrod in the control room.
Maybe you're a Nucleus neophyte,
keen to put the closing number on Direct
Hits back in its original context. (If Alan
Partridge was right about The Beatles’
best album being The Beatles’ Greatest Hits,
how much more true might that be of Ian
Carr's shape-shifting jazz-rock fusion
ensemble?) Or perhaps you were sent this
way by Madlib’s deft Roots repurposing.
Last but not least, I would also say that for
those previously haunted by fear of fusion,
Roots would be a hell of a gateway drug.
This is the sixth and perhaps best of

the nine albums
that different
versions of Ian
Carr’s Nucleus
released from
1970-75. While
Miles Davis was
the obvious contemporary parallel in
terms of shifting personnel on a musical
mission where one man’s word bein

law seems to have brought out the best

in everyone, posterity allows us to mix

in The Fall as a rogue comparative
element (Belladonna, the fourth in the
sequence, was credited to Carr alone,
because the only ones that could stand
the pace by that point were him and his
granny on bongos).

Pieced together at the time from
various sources, reflecting the
precariousness of such virtuosic
endeavour (can you guess which track
began life as the third movement in a
four-part suite to celebrate Shakespeare’s
birthday?), Roots can be heard almost half
a century on as a brilliantly sequenced,
entirely satisfying musical adventure. The
stunning theoretical handbrake turn from
the ticking hi-hat Herbie Hancock heist
movie soundtrack of the opening number
into the Arcadian vocal space-jazz of
Images, featuring singer Joy Yates, is
negotiated with effortless poise. The
whole world is indeed Nucleus's oyster-
bed. And as for the concluding segue
from the cowbell-driven jazz/metal
musique concréte of Odokamona into the
redemptive Mingus tribute of Southern
Roots And Celebration, well, you've got
to hear it to believe it.

lan Carr: embarked оп
an entirely satisfying
musical adventure.

MOJO 97

David Bowie
ЖЖЖЖ

The Width
Of A Circle

PARLOPHONE. CD/DL

Two-disc compilation of live
performances and radically
enhanced studio fare.

David Bowie's pre-Hunky Dory
output has many a devotee
enchanted by his folky,
whimsical early catalogue, and
this compilation will not
disappoint. CD1, Bowie's 1970
performance on ВВС1%5
Sunday showcase for new
music, Top Gear, is compered
by a snoozy prog-rock version
of John Peel. Yes, Bowie's live
vocalis excellent on a cover of
Jacques Brel's Amsterdam, and
the sound is seriously beefed
up by the addition of Tony
Visconti (bass) and Mick
Ronson (lead guitar) partway
through the set, but massively
new or consistently brilliant it
is not. CD2, a mix of live cuts
and restored studio tracks,
does indicate that Bowie was
indeed becoming the special
one: the single edits of
Memory Of A Free Festival
and All The Madmen, along
with the possessed

Vault series. Thirteen

FILTER REISSUES

Nietzschean The Supermen,
are blueprints for Bowie's
radical musical future.

David Buckley

ШИИ

Lipstick Killers
ЖЖЖЖ

Strange Flash:
Studio & Live 78-81

GROWN UP WRONG! С/Р

Two wild CDs of Aussie
garage revival one-hit
wonders.

Founded in
the Sydney
high-energy
slipstream of
Radio Birdman,
Lipstick Killers
released only one single
during their brief lifetime, but
it was enough for immortality:
the next-wave-Nuggets feroc-
ity of 1979's Hindu Gods Of
Love, produced by Birdman
guitarist Deniz Tek. Incredibly,
no studio album followed, and
the band did not survive a
move to Los Angeles, breaking
up on the eve of a deal with
Slash Records. This rear-view
mirror mayhem - studio
demos from 1978 and 1980;
stage action in Adelaide and at
theLA punk club Madame
Wong's - argues for what
could have been. Live covers
affirm the roots in play (Mitch
Ryder, The 13th Floor Eleva-
tors), but it's the blazing, bruis-
ing invention in the originals
(Mesmerizer, Driving The
Special Dead, Liquor Fit) that
justifies the legend rightly
attached to that lone single.
David Fricke

Noel Gallagher's
High Flying Birds
ЖЖЖЖ

Back The Way

We Came Vol. |
Q011-2021)

SOUR MASH. 2CD/DL/2LP

Retrospective feast from his
inaugural solo decade.

EI In the fledgling
ራ Oasis interview
documented on
1995's Wib-
bling Rivalry,
the Gallagher
brothers were already arguing
about musical evolution, and
when the band split in 2009
they'd proved unable to evolve
satisfyingly beyond Morning
Glory's anthemic humungity,
stuck, to quote Noel, in "gres-
sion" mode. Since freed of
stadium obligation, Gallagher
Sr talks of his solo career as
“like a flower unfolding" (see
MOJO 322). That image holds
good for this roughly chrono-
logical 18-song canter through
his first 10 High Flying years, as
tight-arsed neo-Manc stric-
tures quickly loosen to allow
delicious infusions from
Chicago, New Orleans and
Brazil. By CD2's selections from
2019-20's three EPs, ethereal
disco (Black Star Dancing) and
untethered јоу (A Dream Is All
І Need To Get By) are the
defining characteristics. Two
new gospel-voiced cuts, the
slow-burning We're On Our
Way Now and the breezy, Style
Council-ish Flying On The
Ground, complete the sense of
spiritual uplift.
Andrew Perry

OF THE MONTH

The White
Stripes
White Blood
Cells ХХ

THIRD MAN

“Ice cream sandwich at the
liquor store”, anyone?
That's the tantalising
proposition offered up in
That’s Where It’s At, one of
many unheard White
Stripes gems on the hefty
White Blood Cells XX set for
subscribers to Third Man’s

demos and outtakes chart
the album’s gestation, often
sketchily essayed on a
boombox. Unreleased songs
are half-formed: the sweeter
That’s Where It’s At would
eventually become the
operatically paranoid I
Think I Smell A Rat, with
only the “baseball bat”
reference retained from this
first lyrical draft. The
McCartneyish Ooh-Aah and
Feel Like I'm Three Feet
Tall were never, it seems,

ЕТЕНЕ? (А

98 МОЈО

completed. It's a candid
portrait ofa songwriter at
work, complemented by a
2001 Louisville set that
bottles the still-shocking
intensity of The White
Stripes live experience (Son
House's Death Letter, as at
so many 2001 shows, is
outrageous and pivotal).
There's also an hour of
in-studio footage: a raw and
radical garage band, on the
cusp of something
unimaginable.

John Mulvey

Motorhead:
feel something
in your guts.

Miles Davis
ЖЖЖЖ
Merci Miles!
Live At Vienne

WARNER BROS. CD/DL/LP

Trumpet legend's poignant
farewell to France.

France had

always been a

happy hunting

ground for

Miles Davis

since his first
visit in 1949; it's where he fell
in love with actress Juliette
Greco and also recorded one
of his finest albums, 1958's
Ascenseur Pour L'échafaud. His
final tour there in July 1991,
three months before his death,
saw him appear at the Vienne
jazz festival. That concert is
now released to mark the 30th
anniversary of his passing.
Despite his supposed frailty,
Miles doesn't sound like he's
ailing on the set's eight tracks,
which include terrific extended
versions of Michael Jackson's
Human Nature and Cyndi
Lauper's Time After Time.
Also noteworthy are a couple
of Prince tunes (the funk-
powered Penetration and
bluesy Jailbait), which allow
the trumpeter's excellent
band to flex its chops. A must-
hear album for fans of late
period Miles.

Charles Waring

Motórhead
ЖЖЖЖЖ

No Sleep ТІ
Hammersmith — 40th

Anniversary Box-Set
BMG / SANCTUARY. CD/LP

The apogee of their
"everything louder than
everything else" motto.

ል UK Number 1
with a bullet
(belt) in June
1981, No Sleep
‘Til Hammer-
smith still
stands as the definitive
document of Motórhead's
very British din. If you were
one of denim and leather's
great unwashed, experiencing
their frantic, no frills wattage
live was a cherished rite of
passage. It was also a bit like

getorbeay

salmonella: something to feel
in your guts and survive.
Newly expanded to include
soundcheck recordings and
the entirety of the Newcastle
and Leeds gigs from which the
original tracklisting was culled,
this 40th anniversary celebra-
tion speaks of a grubbier,
dingier UK, but there's also
a notably egalitarian aspect
to the band's electrifying,
amphetamine-fuelled
performances. Lemmy's do
or die stage presence is all
about inclusivity, and who
but Motórhead would pen We
Are The Road Crew, a raucous
and heartfelt tribute to their
indefatigable enablers.

James McNair

Various

ЖЖЖЖ
Studio One Roots

SOUL JAZZ. LP

Blue vinyl reissue of this
excellent 2001 compilation
makes crucial listening.

Studio One's
roots reggae
output was as
enthralling as
its ground-
breaking ska,
a combination of lo-fi
equipment, top-notch session
players and idiosyncratic
recording methods rendering
a readily-identifiable sound
perfectly suited to the emerg-
ing form, which placed an
emphasis on social issues and
Rastafari consciousness in the
early 1970s. Compiled 20 years
ago by Honest Jon's Mark
Ainley and now available on
beautiful blue vinyl, this collec-
tion has rare Africa-focused
singles from Count Ossie,

The Gaylads and Willie
Williams, whose Addis A Baba
updates the Skatalites classic,
while Winston Jarrett's Fear
Not is an alternate reading

of Burning Spear's Rocking
Time. Elsewhere, Bunnie And
Skitter lament the murder of
Congolese revolutionary
Patrice Lumumba, Horsemouth
Wallace sets a Mutabaruka
identity poem to a melodica
adaptation of Do Your Thing,
and Alton Ellis describes

a vision of racial oppression

in symbolic terms.

Rick Saunders

David Katz

Gaélle Leroyer

нивоу GURDY SONGS |

aus T MS

Various
ЖЖЖЖ
Hurdy Gurdy Songs

ACE. CD/DL

Celebrating the psychedelic
poet laureate, now in his
75th year.

Donovan's complete
investment in the hippy ideal
has often distracted from his
ability as a tunesmith so this
album of interpretations by his
'60s peers - the latest in Ace's
superb Songwriter Series — is a
welcome reminder of his rich
songbook and impact on the
decade's cultural identity.
Spanning 1967 to '71, some of
the 24 tracks - like Herman's
Hermits' cover of Museum
and The Standells' take on
Sunshine Superman - closely
follow Donovan's psych pop
blueprint. Others, though, are
more radical in their approach
апа it's these that provide the
thrills; in particular, Dandy's
pop reggae version of There Is
A Mountain, Lou Rawls' soul
jazz reading of Season Of
The Witch, Gábor Szabó's
psychotropic Three King
Fishers, and Eartha Kitt's Hurdy
Gurdy Man, in her hands a
lusty Chaucerian come-on.
Lois Wilson

FJ HARVEY

Р.). Harvey
ЖЖЖЖ
White Chalk — Demos

BEGGARS ARCHIVE/TOO PURE.
CD/DL/LP

Sketchbook strangeness
from the Wessex downlands.

2007's White Chalk found an
increasingly dauntless Polly
Harvey treading new ground,
ditching raw electric rock for a
daringly fragile chamber-folk
sound. With songs built
around her percussive,
rudimentary piano vamps and
delivered in a high, haunting
vocal register, its bleak beauty
and rural mystery recast
Harvey as a gothic Dorset
seer, summoning spirits both
innocent and dark. Stripped
of even the album's minimal
decoration, these demos
confirm that uncanniness was
hard-wired into the songs,
with every creak of the piano
contributing to the spectral
ambience. The spareness
serves only to exacerbate the

eerie, infant vulnerability of
Grow, Grow, Grow, while When
Under Ether almost evaporates
into its amniotic reverb swirl,
and the double-tracked voices
on The Devil seem to be more
about the evocation of
possession than harmonic
mellifluousness. Like much
here, it's as starkly compelling
as itis ineffably disquieting.
David Sheppard

Andy Irvine
ЖЖЖ

Old Dog Long Road
Vol. 2

AK-9. CD/DL

Rewarding ramble through
the back pages of an Irish
master.

Sweeney's
Men, Planxty,
Patrick Street,
Mozaic...
Andy Irvine's

ገ extensive CV
encompasses so much of
enduring significance in Irish
music over the last half century
it's easy to overlook what an
informally masterful solo
performer he has always been.
Greater profile focuses on
contemporaries like Christy
Moore, but Irvine's intimate
lyrical style, plaintive
narratives and dexterous
instrumentals make him a
unique figure. This 23-track
2-CD set stretches back to
1961, and while the sound
quality understandably varies,
it monitors a fascinating
journey from Woody Guthrie
imitator to great ballads and
tales of unsung heroes to jigs,
reels and a beautiful blast of
Greek music too. Mostly solo,
it's less well trodden than Vol. 1
and is better for it, whether
featuring Chrysoula
Kechagioglou on The Snows,
singing with Planxty on a
mesmerising live version of As
Roved Out, or his own 1969
take on You Fascists Bound To
Lose. A classic troubadour.
Colin Irwin

COMING
NEXT MONTH...

Sparks, Leon Bridges, Alice
Coltrane, George Harrison, Gary
Kemp, Martha Wainwright
(pictured), Shannon & The Clams,
Devendra Banhart, Little Steven,
Willy Mason, Josienne Clarke,
Karen Black, Juana Molina,
Jackson Browne and тоге...

BRICOLAGE

Bricolage
ЖЖЖЖ

Bricolage

CREEPING BENT. CD/DL/LP

Sole 2009 LP by Glasgow art
school quartet who split on
single The Waltzers' release
day (a sugary swirl of The La's
and ELO). Produced by Altered
Images' Stephen Lironi, wistful
retro pop with skills to match
smarts, ripe for rediscovery. JB

ЖЖЖ
Eboni Band

WE ARE BUSY BODIES. DL/LP

This marriage of Motown and
West Africa is intriguing in its
potential but disappointing in
reality. Five songs, produced
by Art Stewart (Marvin Gaye,
Rick James) with US and Ivory
Coast musicians, range from
generic party-time funk-disco
(Sing A Happy Song) to lightly
Afro-flavoured groovers. CP

ЖЖЖЖ

Јата Кісо
2-TONE. LP

In 1982, the veteran Jamaican
trombonist ignored fashion
and cut no-fooling, vintage-
sounding jazzy-reggae and ska
with Jamaican/British players
including Tommy McCook,

Sly & Robbie and various
Specials. Remastered, as is
1981's That Man Is Forward, on
heavy black wax. IH

= TEEN TRASH SENSATION?

3 -Çourettes

The Courettes
ЖЖЖЖ
Неге Ме Аге

DAMAGED GOODS. CD/DL/LP.

Danish/Brazilian husband/wife,
drums/guitar duo Martin and
Flavia Couri make spit'n'snarl
garage rumble-meets-Phil
Spector pop. This compiles
their first two LPs, showcasing
their adrenalised crunch
before a new LP in October. JB

The Fall

ЖЖЖЖ

Are You Аге

Missing Winner

CHERRY RED/FALL SOUND ARCHIVE.
CD/LP

It seemed like MES's jig was up
when this scrappy, low-cost LP
arrived in 2001. Instead, it was
a re-boot, with garage attack,
Leadbelly and Iggy covers and
Troggs-sampling invoking livid
chaos galore. Live shows beef
up the 4-CD version. IH

Dyke &
The Blazers
ЖЖЖЖ

Down On Funky

Broadway

CRAFT. DL/LP

Phoenix, AZ band fronted by
brusque-voiced Arlester 'Dyke'
Christian. Blistering, raw, 1966-
67 funk. Full of extras, as is
second set / Got a Message:
Hollywood (1968-1970). GB

Noah
ЖЖЖЖ

Brain Suck

GUERSSEN. CD/DL/LP

1972 heavy psych/prog
concept LP from Salem, Ohio.
Avocados Grumbled sets a
tone of Sabbath-worthy future
doom, whirling Hammond and
lumbering riffs. Hard to tell
what's sucking brains - drugs,
aliens, The Man? - but it's scary
in a good way. LP2 is pre-Noah
garage as Sound Barrier. JB

Various
kK Kk Kk XK
The Trojan Story

BMG. CD/LP

Rights issues mean this isn't an
exact replica of 1971's triple-LP
label anthology: nine originals
replaced, but there's two
bonus cuts, and it remains an
essential account of the ska
wave, with hits from Dandy,
The Maytals, Phyllis Dillon, Lee
Perry et al. The original Trojan
comp, and still the best. KC

Violent Femmes
ЖЖЖ
Add It Up (1981-1993)

CRAFT RECORDINGS. DL/LP
Milwaukee pioneers' 1993
compilation now on double
vinyl for the band's 40th
anniversary. The carnal skiffle
punk rush of 1983's debut and
Hallowed Ground's proto alt-
country are unimpeachable,
though they were prone to
whimsical diversion. JB

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MOJO CLASSIC

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6000

DISAPPOINTING

* ኙየ
BEST AVOIDED DEPLORABLE

MOJO 99

Spaced oddities:

Furry Animals (from
left) Dafydd leuan, Guto
Pryce, Gruff Rhys, Huw
Bunford, Cian Ciaran.

Redferns

super Furry Animals

The

D
H
[
|

по, melancholic

elic- е
machine. By Keith መ on.

MONG THE MANY priceless Super Furry
A fables, perhaps most revealing is the one

about Creation Records’ Alan McGee
checking out his label’s potential new signings at a
north London pub gig He thought they were good
but advised singing in English. Puzzled, the band
replied that they already were.

Otherworldliness came naturally to Super Furry
Animals. Mustered in early-'90s Cardiff, guitarist
Huw ‘Bunf’ Bunford, drummer Dafydd Ieuan, bassist
Guto Price and singer-guitarist Gruff Rhys were
mainstays of a Welsh language scene unable to satisfy
their restless ambition. Rhys and Ieuan's previous
band, Ffa Coffi Pawb, released three albums on the
Ankst label, thus learning the basics of recording
technique, and once united with U Thant's Bunford
and Price they formulated SFA's utopian design:
classic rock and timeless melody reconditioned for
the acid house generation. After two
Ankst EPs in 1995, Ieuan's younger
brother Cian Ciaran joined on
keyboards to effect the quantum
leap into Furryworld that was
1996's debut album Fuzzy Logic.

The band's pent-up anarchic
energy and Creation's Oasis-enabled
largesse made a happy marriage.

Instead of music press adverts for the

100 MOJO

This month you
chose your Top 10
Super Furry
Animals LPs. Next
month we want
your KEVIN COYNE
Top 10. Send
selections via
Twitter, Facebook,
Instagram or
e-mail to mojo@
bauermedia.co.uk
with the subject
‘How To Buy Kevin
Coyne’. We'll print
the best comments.

single If You Don’t Want Me To
Destroy You, they bought a tank,
which parked up at festivals and
blasted ear-bleed techno to
boggle-eyed ravers. “We were
too idiosy ncratic for mass appeal,”
Gruff Rhys later considered,

“but our theory was if people

get bombarded with stuff, they'll

accept anything.”
Arun of nine albums saw Super Furry Animals
cavalierly surfing the trad/rad crosscurrents of their

collective mind. Although Rings Around The World, a

UK Number 3 and MOJO’s 2001 Album Of The Year,

was a commercial peak, every SFA record has
something to reward seekers of the sacred meeting
space between sad balladry and punk aggro, sunshine
harmonies and extreme frequencies, psychedelic
hedonism and militant politics — sometimes all in the
same song. Since 2009's Dark Days/Light Years, the
band has been dormant while Rhys concentrates on
solo work, though 2016 saw them touring behind the
Zoom! best-of and Fuzzy Logic’s 20th
anniversary reissue. In 2020, SFA
minus Rhys released a single under
the name Das Koolies. All would
surely agree, however, that the
world is a poorer place for the
absence of Furryvision.
And the tank? Sold to Don
Henley, who had it shipped to Texas.
Now that’s fuzzy logic for you.

Super Furry
Animals
Love Kraft

EPIC,

You say: “Love Kraft is under-
rated and an amazing
display of SFA's talents."
Mark Green, Twitter

Released in the band's 10th
anniversary year, Love Kraft
ostensibly signalled a retreat
into tradition. Opener Zoom
refracted The Needle And The
Damage Done into a choog-
ling choral lament for the
apocalypse. Perhaps signifi-
cantly, Love Kraft opened up
the lead vocal booth to all-
comers (Rhys’ solo debut came
out earlier the same year), with
Dafydd leuan’s Atomik Lust
positing a stoned union of The
Beach Boys’ Feel Flows and
Mott The Hoople knees-up, all
the better to “Get our shit
together”. Lazer Beam, mean-
while, recorded in Spain and
mixed in Brazil with producer
Mario Caldato Jr, was pure
Furry fiesta: a rhythmic booty
call to vaporise “imperial
colonial bastards.”

mwng

Super Furry

Animals Mwng
PLACID CASUAL,

You say: "Highest selling
Welsh language album of all
time! Beautiful and mind-
boggling at once." Michael
Scarlett via mojo4music.com

It's a very Super Furry Animals
thing that the album which
least resembles their popularly
recognised sound 15 actually
closest to the band's root
source. Recorded mostly live,
Mwng dispensed with the
hyper-ventilatory input over-
load of the preceding year's
Guerrilla and circled the
Furrywagons around core
values. Entirely Welsh-sung,
mostly mid-tempo, full of
rustic melancholy beatitudes,
with some lovely brass (Y
Gwyneb Lau), the occasional
burst of backporch glam skronk
(Ysbeidiau Heulog), it features
two instructive covers: Y Teimlad,
by '80s Welsh language scene
pioneers Datblygu, and Dacw
Hi, written by Rhys for his
previous band Ffa Coffi Pawb
and yet definitively Furry.

Gruff Rhys
American Interior
TURNSTILE,

You say: "Not just a beautiful
album, Gruff also expanded
the concept to include a
great book and a film."
Sarah Stevens, via e-mail

As anyone who's witnessed
the band in a creative setting
can attest, Super Furry Animals
functioned on strictly demo-
cratic lines, with even minor
decisions requiring collective
agreement. Maybe this partly
explains Gruff Rhys' current
preference for working solo.
None of his albums will disap-
point SFA fans, but the best
entry points are 2011's Hotel
Shampoo - a miniature juke-
box refreshment of familiar
Furry tropes - or this concep-
tual travelogue based on 18th
century explorer John Evans,
a distant relative of Rhys',

and his obsession with a
mythical tribe of Welsh-
speaking native Americans.
Its blend of cosmic frontier
epic and downhome whimsy
is profoundly moving.

5
Als eA

Super Furry
Animals
Fuzzy Logic
CREATION,
You say: “One of the best
debut albums ever and still

sounds fantastic today.”
Dan Wolff, Twitter

Although the Furries enjoyed
recording a debut amid the
luxury of Rockfield Studios,
they later admitted to feeling
uncomfortable in an environ-
ment far removed from previ-
ous experience (and possibly
tainted by association with
Britpop) despite the continued
presence of production mentor
Gorwel Owen. Yet Fuzzy Logic
offered a fully-formed universe
without an obvious precedent,
a psych-pop wonderland
stuffed with arcane characters
like Hometown Unicorn's alien
abductee Franckie Fontaine or
Welsh drug smuggler Howard
Marks, with walk-ons for Kevin
Ayers' wind ensemble Wizards
Of Twiddly and actor Rhys
Ifans, who sang in an early SFA
incarnation. Everything to
come can be traced back here.

w/ Ver

Super Furry
Animals

Phantom Power
EPIC,

You say: "The Welsh wonders
have had so many amazing
albums but Phantom Power
has the Number 1 SFA song -
Slow Life." Andrew Wilkie,
Facebook

Phantom Power maintained
Rings Around The World's future-
facing stance - released as a
DVD, it had a remix companion,
Phantom Phorce - while tem-
pering its predecessor's hyper-
activity. There's no shortage of
action, however, with an air of
latter-day Clash or The Beat in
the globalist outreach of The
Undefeated and Valet Parking
("The Eurozone is my home"),
while much of the rest
suggests a Western odyssey
without a map, be it the
punkoid Out Of Control calling
out post-9/11 US aggression

or the turbo-Canned Heat
silliness of Golden Retriever.
The closing Slow Life is peak
techno-Americana from the
originators of the form.

Super Furry
Animals Rings
Around The World

EPIC,

You say: "Startling in scope
and ambition, capturing one
of those times when a band
can try anything and it works.”
Andy Horseman, Facebook

The Furries followed their self-
released unadorned Welsh-
language album by signing to
a major and making a multi-
layered epic in 5.1 Surround
Sound with accompanying
films for each track. There was
an actual kitchen sink on Fuzzy
Logic, but Rings Around The
World is Super Furry Animals"
maximalist masterpiece, their
electronica roots pulsing
through symphonic pop gran-
diosity worthy of Queen. The
material was suitably stellar: a
title track upholding the prem-
ise that ELO were the band The
Beatles could have been;
Juxtapozed With U's plastic-soul
slink; best of all, Receptacle For
The Respectable, a demented
four-part song suite featuring
Paul McCartney eating a carrot.

Super Furry
Animals Dark
Days/Light Years

ROUGH TRADE,

You say: "Their last album to
date is easily their best post-
Creation LP. Inaugural Trams
shows they can write a great
song about literally any-
thing, The Very Best Of Neil
Diamond insanely catchy."
Eddie Robson, via e-mail

If Dark Days/Light Years really is
the final Super Furry Animals
LP, it represents both a riotous
return to form and a worthy
adieu. From opener Crazy
Naked Girls' nu-P-Funk freak-
ery to Inaugural Trams - effec-
tively Autobahn updated for
MittelEuropean urban transit
systems with a Deutsche rap
from Franz Ferdinand's Nick
McCarthy - through the Isleys
punch of Bunf's White Socks/
Flip Flops, this was a band re-
energised by the power of
groove. Emblematic of a canon
defined by absurdist wisdom,
only SFA could deliver a song
called The Very Best Of Neil
Diamond that lives up to its title.

SUPER FURRY
ANIMALS

ZOOM! THE BEST) OF

SUPER|FURRY,

Super Furry

Animals
Zoom! The Best Of
1995-2016

BMG,

You say: “The best band in
the world, bar none! Every
album is an absolute winner!
I'm going with The Best Of..."
Stephen Parry, Facebook

While SFA's grand conceptual
visions suit the LP format, their
ever-twitchy pop antennae also
make for a great singles band,
a fact acknowledged early оп
with 1998's Out Spaced, which
cherry-picked the Ankst EPs,
Creation B-sides and legendary
Steely Dan-sampling epic set-
closer The Man Don't Give A
Fuck. With 37 tracks, Zoom! is a
comprehensive taster and an
essential companion-piece,
including every single, some
reasonably deep cuts, the
standouts from 2007's spotty
Hey! Venus, and Bing Bong, the
last SFA release to date - a
maverick anthem for the Wales
football team's 2016 European
Championship campaign.

Super Furry Animals Radiator
CREATION,

You say: "Their masterpiece... Pop, prog, techno, folk,

Krautrock, and usually during one song. I'm not one for ‘funny’
lyrics but the line ‘Marie Curie was Polish born but French bred.
Ha! French Bread!’ always raises a smile." Gary Page, Facebook

Recorded at Gorwel Owen's tiny home studio in Anglesey, Radiator
is significant on several levels. The first SFA album to feature the
monsterist art of Pete Fowler, it's also the first with full creative
input from keyboardist Cian Ciaran. His Fender Rhodes is all over a
set broadly dividing into a manic first half (including Hermann
Loves Pauline's lockstep pop frenzy) and a melancholic second,
concluding with the remarkable Mountain People, a country rock
lament for indigenous Welsh culture, with lyrics inspired by
Harold Pinter's play Mountain Language, that eventually degrades
into atonal techno. In 2017, on its 20th anniversary reissue, Guto

Pryce declared Radiator, "a graphic

, animated, fantastical record.

We were creating our world instead of the world being thrust

upon us." In the entire Furry-verse,

there is no finer place to visit.

Super Furry
Animals

Guerrilla

CREATION,

You say: "Guerrilla is a band
embracing their identify
before a succession of
momentum-sapping
hiatuses." Phil Lewis via
mojo4music.com

With its sampler rampages and
sonic density, Guerrilla proved
the value of recording at hi-
spec Real World: a sprawl of
yob-pop (The Teacher; Do Or
Die), instrumental miniatures
(The Sound Of Life Today) and
lachrymose sing-alongs (The
Turning Tide; Fire In My Heart),
simultaneously pitching at
pop disposability and thematic
cohesion. The chattering bleep
mesh of Wherever | Lay My
Phone (That’s My Home) is a
song that's more prescient by
the day, while Chewing
Chewing Gum is surrealist SFA
wisdom at its most immacu-
lately stoned. Collapso-calypso
gem Northern Lites remains
their highest charting single —
unlucky Number 11.

NOW DIG THIS

Recently-released Seeking
New Gods is the seventh
Gruff Rhys album, yet all

his erstwhile bandmates
enjoy extracurricular
activity too. Cian Ciaran has
four albums under his own
name, and together with
Dafydd leuan has composed
several TV soundtracks,
winning a BAFTA Cymru
award in 2011. leuan is a
member of The Peth,
fronted by former SFA
singer Rhys Ifans and
including Guto Pryce, and
has also released two LPs

in The Earth, featuring
Catatonia guitarist Mark
Roberts. Pryce is one half
of Gulp, alongside his partner
Lindsay Leven, the couple
releasing two albums of
cinematic dreampop.
Huw Bunford, meanwhile,
was in Pale Blue Dots and
has composed music for
films. In 2020, SFA sans
Gruff released the debut
Das Koolies single, It's All
About The Dolphins.

ALL GOOD WISHES

MOJO 101

You gotta let me
know: Ellen Foley
with Micky Jones.

@Adrian Boot/urbanimage.tv

Flying colours

Ellen Foley
Spirit Of St. Louis

CLEVELAND INTERNATIONAL/EPIC, 1981

BORN IN Missouri but toughened up in New
York's rock and theatre scenes, Ellen Foley was
already a familiar voice in 1981. She'd duetted
with Meat Loaf on Paradise By The Dashboard
Light on Bat Out Of Hell in 1977; thereafter,
Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson produced
1979's solo debut Nightout, promoted to UK
viewers with a subversive performance of The
Rolling Stones' Stupid Girl, in the company of
musclemen and swimsuit models, on Kenny
Everett's TV show. But in February 1980,
Foley had a fateful meeting with Mick Jones at
London's Venue. Romine! bloomed, se tting off
achain of events that led to The Clash backing
her on, and the Jones/Joe Strummer team
writing for, her follow-up Spirit Of St. Louis.

*[Mick and I] lived in New York and
London to split up the time," recalls Foley
today. “It was time for me to make a record,
and he wanted to make a record with me, and
he brought the band in. They didn't seem to
object and it came about sort of naturally."

Recording took place in August 1980 at
Wessex Studios, where The Clash were
completing their triple-LP Sandinista! Foley
duetted with Jones on that record's 45
Hitsville UK, and recalls a porous approach
to recording the two albums.

"It was a pretty long process," she says.
"But they were very organised, and it was a
nice atmosphere. Midk, Paul and Topper did
all the basic tracks and then everyone else
[various Blockheads and Strummer's fiddling
pal Tymon Dogg] came in. It was very organic
and improvisational. Joe wasn’t actually
involved in the record, but he was around, and
we talked. He was very sensitive, and

102 MOJO

Tracks: The
Shuttered Palace /

Waste Of Time / The
eath Of The
sychoanalyst Of
Salvador Dali /
M.P.H. / My
egionnaire /
Theatre Of Cruelty /
How Glad | ለጠ /
hases Of Travel /
Game Of A Man /
ndestructible / In
The Killing Hour
Personnel: Ellen
oley (vcls), Mick
Jones (үсі5, gtr), Joe
Strummer, John
Turnbull (gtrs), Paul
Simonon, Norman
Watt-Roy (bs),
Topper Headon
drms), Mickey
Gallagher (keybds),
ауеу Payne (sax),

Producer: Mick
ones with Bill Price
engineer, mixing),
Jeremy Green
assistant engineer)
Released: March
981

Recorded: Wessex
Studios, north
ondon

Chart peak: 57
UK), 152 (US)
Current
availability:
emon/Cherry Red
CD (with Nightout)

respectful. I think Joe was
probably a feminist. Because
I thought he was so brilliant,

I'd go along with what he was
8 E

orchlight / Beautiful

Tymon Dogg (violin).

are between any songwriting marriage.
A real grounding force on my record,
and Sandinista!, was Bill Price, the
engineer and, really, the producer.

He was the calm head."

Ofthe other six titles, a charged cover
of Edith Piaf favourite My Legionnaire
gives a novel twist to The Clash's combat
obsessions, though Foley is less admiring
of songs written by Tymon Dogg, noting,

“I didn't find him to bea gr ros part of the
experience." (Of his Game Of A Man she
pithily observes, *WTF?")

She admits to other ambivalences about
the album, saying, “I’m not sure that I feel
powerful within it. I was intimidated. I
thought I was mature. I'd done theatre and
Broadway and television and the Meat Loaf
thing, being powerful for a young girl, and
then maybe it fell apart a little bit. Things
are very ‘madame,’ as they say in fashion,
when they should be ver y *Fuck You! I was
abitout of my element."

With a hometown-referenci ing title,
after the monoplane piloted by C 'harles
Lindbergh for the first tr ansatlantic flight,
the album was released in March 198 Г, қ
Peaking at UK Number 57, and a modest
hit in the Netherlands, it reached 152, for
two weeks, in the US. “We set out to make
a modern cabaret record,"

she says now.

writing. He created incredible
stories for me to tell. I can't see him doinga
lot of these songs."

While the guitar-bass-drums bedrock of
the record is recognisably The Clash, the six
Strummer/Jones originals reveal different
aspects of the mothership, channelling an idea
of the female anima in songs which recall such
tender Clash songs as Midnight To Stevens,
Death Is A Star or Train In Vain. With Foley's
barnstorming rock voice tempered into a
croon, opener The Shuttered Palace is a lilting
Hellenic ballad sung by a courtesan — Clash
consigliere Kosmo Vi inyl did Greek dancing on
the vi ide зо — while Foley brings her theatric al
experience to the fantastic al Тһе Death Of
The Psychoanalyst Of Salvador Dali, where
images of Gene Vincent's rusted cufflinks and
policemen *begging for soup" emblemise
surrealist bre оно n. Foley also praises
tranquillised housewife vignette Theatre
Of Cruelty, petroleum roc ke ər M.PH. and
execution bolero In The Killing Hour, but

says, “my favourite song on fhe: album is
Torchlight. Mick and
I were singing togethe r. It’s
about people who are lovers
— much as hate that I word —
and it was about a real
resilience. It had a great
uptempo, positive feel, it's
romantic [like] Train In Vain
was incredibly romantic... .
he had it in him."

She recalls, affectionately,
that Jones was unused to
writing for anyone other than
Strummer, and requests for a
different key were met with
“Whaddya | mean/?!’... there
were always things between
Joe and Mick, the way there

“But it was too weird. If it had been for my
fourth album, it would have been great.”

Around this time Foley was also filmed
alongside The Clash playing “street scum”
in Martin Scorsese’s The King Of Comedy.
“We were standing in front of [legendary
Times Square store] Colony Records,” she
laughs. “We spent the day yelling at Robert
De Niro. That was fun!” She would also
appear on Clash farewell Combat Rock in
1982, but split with Jones in the summer
of that year. Is The Clash’s Should I Stay Or
Should I Go about her, as legend claims?
“I don’t know,” “Full stop!”

Foley’s later credits included Joe Jackson’s
Body. And Soul, Jim Steinman's Pandora's Box

she says.

project and doing the vocal arrangement for
Bonnie Tyler's Holding Out For A Hero.
On-screen, she appeared in Tootsie, Fatal
Attraction, Married To The Mob and
numerous US TV shows. Now, new LP
Fighting Words gets back to her rock’n’roll
roots: on seize-the-day lead track I’m Just
Happy To Be Here she duets with Karla
DeVito, who lip- sync'd
Foley's powe erhouse vocals
on the Paradise By The
Dashboard Light’ video.
Ultimately, she’s at peace
with Spirit of. St. Louis. “It’s
such a beautiful sounding
record,” she says. “Incredible
musically, the songs, the
instrumentation and the risks
that were taken. There’s a real
maturity to it. You know what?
It was a fabulous thing to do,
and I really wish people would
hear it again.”

Tan Harrison

Fighting Words is out on August 6

on Urban Noise.

Onpg

SISTERS
WITH

TRANSISTORS

ез сә 2 ምጋ

Sisters With
Transistors
ЖЖЖЖ

Dir: Lisa Rovner
MODERN FILMS. C/ST

A film celebrating the
unsung heroines of
electronic music.

"Composers were traditionally
old, dead white men - but
electronic music gave you the
freedom to define any world
you wanted,” says Laurie
Spiegel, the New York
composer whose 1986 Music
Mouse instrument was one of
the earliest forms of music
software. Along with artists
like Delia Derbyshire in the
BBC Radiophonic Workshop,
Pauline Oliveros at the 1960s
San Francisco Tape Music
Centre, and Éliane Radigue,
who studied musique concréte
with Pierre Schaeffer before
creating her own beautiful
analogue synth-scapes,
Spiegel was a vital part of the
evolution of electronic music.
This film, narrated by Laurie
Anderson with rare archive
footage, in-depth interviews
and experimental sonic
textures, is like an extended
meditation on those pioneers.
One of the most memorable
scenes features Daphne Oram
painting on filmstrip and
coming up with a prototype
for MIDI. One to watch again
and again.

Lucy O'Brien

Last Man
Standing
ЖЖЖЖ

Dir: Nick Broomfield

DOGWOOOF. C/ST

Sequel to 2002's Biggie &
Tupac sets its sights on Death
Row mogul Suge Knight.

A more stringent
dig into the
tangled web that
р claimed the lives
of two of hip-
hop's most
mesmeric stars,
Last Man Standing dissects
the doomed brotherhood
between 2Pac and Suge
Knight with fearless scrutiny.
A grim portrait of the
intimidating Knight - a label
executive in name alone –

it shows how Death Row's
devastating trail of gang
violence ("We'd whup your ass
with no questions asked," says
an enabler) was compounded

LAST MAN
STANDING

by the collusion of a network
of bent LAPD officers. Tongues
freed by Knight's waning hold
and lengthy incarceration,
the insider revelations quickly
pile up, offering a highly
compelling argument for
murders that remain officially
unsolved. Tight, concise and
mercifully free of the bungles
and dead ends that marred its
predecessor, it’s gripping
viewing and one of
Broomfield’s best.

Andy Cowan

Sam Cooke:
Legend
ЖЖЖЖ

Dir: Mary Wharton

ABKCO. DV

Out of print since 2003, now
massively expanded screen
time, plus 3,000-word note.

E ЖЕРИ When he
ፖ1 ሔር transitioned
% ie ul М from gospel

VETE sensation to

3 international

pop star, Sam
Cooke never lost
the holy spirit and thus helped
create soul music. Written by
his biographer Peter Guralnick,
this documentary examines
his singularity: matinee looks,
deep intelligence, songwriting
chops, business savvy and that
gritty yet silken voice. From
church to chitlin' circuit,
supper clubs to concert halls,
he was haunted by tragedies
and segregation, but remained
determined. (He insisted on
integrated audiences and
demanded respect from law
enforcement - and got it.)
After influencing '60s rockers,
he was influenced by them,
culminating in the Dylan-
inspired A Change Is Gonna
Come. This is a no-frills tribute:
talking heads, narration,
footage, music. Lloyd Price,
Bobby Womack, Andrew Loog
Oldham and a charming,
very funny Aretha Franklin
all talk Sam and, along with
charismatic performances and
classic songs, carry the story
until its devastating end with
his shooting in 1964.
Michael Simmons

"assi

Summer Of Soul
XX x

Dir: Ahmir 'Questlove'
Thompson

SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES. С

Footage of 1969's Harlem
Cultural Festival aired at last
- it's been worth the wait.
መመመ Opening with

ግ Stevie Wonder's
thunderous Drum
Solo is a sign that
what follows will
be transcendent.
LSS Shot at 1969's
Harlem Cultural Festival —
often called "the Black
Woodstock" and here subtitled
“Ог, When The Revolution
Could Not Be Televised” –

this masterpiece is the urban
equivalent of that other 1960s
landmark. In his directorial

debut, musician Questlove has
created an unequalled ode to
the wildly eclectic black music
ofthe era. His editing is brisk,
but subtly nuanced. To see
David Ruffin, Gladys Knight
& The Pips (soul), Sly & The
Family Stone (funk), B.B. King
(blues), The Staple Singers
(gospel), Abbey Lincoln/Max
Roach (jazz) and more in their
prime is a joy. Other highlights
are Mavis Staples and Mahalia
Jackson duetting and the
regal, radiant Nina Simone on
her A-game. That this footage
could get no buyers for a
half-century is maddening.
Attendees are shown while
watching the footage now,
weeping for joy and perhaps
a dream deferred.

Michael Simmons

Dale Ba

All On B

Dale Barclay:
All On Black
ЖЖЖ

Dir: Billy Hill

BBC IPLAYER.

Profile of the Amazing
Snakeheads frontman who
died of brain cancer in 2018.

As Fat White Family's Lias
Saoudi and Franz Ferdinand's
Alex Kapranos testify here,
Glasgow's Dale Barclay
brought genuine menace to

The composed

Daphne Oram, an
innovative sister
withy transistors.

the Amazing Snakeheads,
his clench-jawed charisma
earmarking them for great,
outsider rock'n'roll things circa
their 2014 Domino debut,
Amphetamine Ballads. Barclay
had hoped to wear a cape for
a crucial Jools Holland's
Later... slot, but that didn't
happen thanks to the original
Snakehead trio's messy
implosion, and it was after
moving to East Berlin and
forming new gang And Yet It
Moves that he began having
seizures. Hill's touching film
፦ "You think I'm young? You've
not met the three-year-old
that's got it," Barclay told wife/
collaborator Laura when
diagnosed with a grade 4
glioblastoma - cedes energy
to a clichéd voiceover, but
its subject's courage and
magnetism shine throughout.
"Everything should end in a
hail of bullets," Barclay joked
pre-illness, screenwriting his
grand finale. Sadly prophetic.
He died aged just 32.

James McNair

What Drives Us
ЖЖЖЖ
Dir: Dave Grohl

AMAZON PRIME VIDEO.

The Foo Fighters corral rock
royalty to deliver a love
letter to life on the road.

It wouldn't be a mistake to
interpret this Dave Grohl-
directed documentary's title
literally. Across 90 minutes, the

Foo Fighters talisman is joined
by an impressive array of
guests - including U2's The
Edge, St. Vincent and AC/DC's
Brian Johnson - to reflect on
their formative years touring in
vans, before limos and jets.
Covering everything from the
Tetris-like logistics of packing
to the ethics of tooting in
confined spaces ("If you fart,
admit it," Ringo Starr decrees),
there's an intoxicating blend
of passion and humour
throughout. What truly
elevates it, however, is how
Grohl uses such stories to also
interrogate the nature of
artistic ambition and the
obstacles it must navigate,
with Dead Kennedys drummer
DH Peligro's harrowing battle
with addiction standing out
as particularly raw and
poignant. It's but one example
of how this (ahem) van-ity
project becomes a vehicle
for something much
more powerful.

George Garner

Caught by the fuzz

4 The Bunr
spirit guardian € |
By Keith Cameron.

-cho An

Bunnyman
ЖЖЖЖ
Will Sergeant

CONSTABLE.

VERY GREAT band needs a conscience,

an arbiter for what is or isn't permissible

along the way. In Echo And The
Bunnymen, that role fell to Will Ser geant,
architect of elemental rock guitar and
self-confessed natural cynic. It was Sergeant
who walked out of a band meeting disgusted
that Dave Balfe had added keyboards to
The Cutter, Sergeant who curtly dismissed
prospective producer Steve Lillyw hite, and
Sergeant who even as he sent copies of the
band? s debut single to fans worried that the
recipients might | be unworthy. “I want to vet
every record sale,” he says, “like the RSPCA
check out if a puppy is going to a good home."

Only the last of these episodes appears in

this memoir. Bunnyman ends with the band
about to sign with Warners, having just invited
Pete De Freitas to replace Sergeant's Mini
Pops Junior drum machine. Ian McCulloch
doesn't appear until page 199. Anyone
expecting a rabbit's-mouth account of the

Paul Slattery

mystical trek from post-punk scuzz to Royal

104 MOJO

Albert Hall grandeur, via tours mapped on ley
lines and a four-album run of incomparable
brilliance, then onward through split, tragedy
and reunion, to today's uneasy marriage
of convenience between Sergeant and
McCulloch, will be disappointed. Until they
read the book, that is. For with his dry, droll,
vivid storytelling, Will Sergeant makes ve ry
clear the factors that shapec əd him, and
therefore his band, into such a unique force.
When Echo And The Bunnymen released
their debut single in May 1979, their
21-year-old guitarist was a commis chef at
Binns, a Liv erpool department store whose
cottage pie recipe was never going to win a
Michelin star. Sergeant details Binns’ kitchen
secrets with the same grim relish he applies
to a childhood sc жей | by acne and a dismal,
sometimes violent, home life on a council
estate in Melling, a Lancashire village on
Liverpool's northern edge. At 13, his mother
walks out, shortly after fiis elder siblings,
leaving Will alone with his misanthr opic father
(*a very complicated chap," he
says, charitably). School is an

archetypal low- -prospect г OF ly at

secondary modern, where А
music provides blessed respite. т
Ina final year English lesson, al
he plays his class a Velvet
Underground album, only to
be pelted with missiles when
Venus In Furs comes on, then
is reproached by his teacher,

The crucial three:

Will Sergeant (far left)
with fellow Bunnymen
lan McCulloch (centre)
and Les Pattinson, {
Liverpool, 1979.

—X AR

BUNNYMAN

| e Will Sergeant
saw his first gig on
May 13, 1972, at
Liverpool Stadium.
Along with mates
Dave and Steve
Mazenko and
Steve's girlfriend
Pauline ("head to
toe in cheesecloth
and denim"), they
see Status Quo
supporting Slade.
Other key Stadium
gigs include

Dr Feelgood and
Sensational Alex
Harvey Band.

ወ The Bunnymen’s
music press debut
was an early 1979
Sounds writers"
chart, where Andy
Courtney cited a
"private tape" song
called World Shut
Your Mouth. The

Mr Corcoran, for cribbing
8

m. we ы / Виппутеп һай по
the sleevenotes. ( I Sud oec Астан
thought it sounded much recorded no such

too eloquent for you.
See me later.")

Only at Eric's, the fetid
basement punk club on
Liverpool's Mathew
Street, does Sergeant truly
find a refuge, accepted by
fellow outsiders including
friends Paul Simpson amd
Les Pattinson, plus a
coterie of future legends:
Holly Johnson, Jayr ne
Casey, Pete Burns, Julian
Cope, and ‘Macul’, who
he'll invite to Melling to
*mess about with guitars".

tape. Years later,
Julian Cope used
thetitleforasong
of his own.

e Arriving for a gig
in Leeds to find a
Mini blocking the
club's load-in
entrance, the
Bunnymen bounce
the car down the
street. They later
discover it belongs
to Annie Lennox,
lead singer of gig
headliners The
Tourists. “Annie
Lennox in full
kill-the-Sassenachs
mode is best
avoided,” says Will.

Sergeant sharply evokes
the neurotic importance of music and clothes,
his relief at seeing light after so much darkness
especially palpable i in the aftermath of his new
band’s first gig: “I am no longer just the kid
that looks like a secret member of the
Ramones... Willy Ramone, the spotty

one they keep in the attic м: CBGBs."

Having tee'd it up, it would
be perverse for Will Sergeant
not to write a sequel. Yet his
favourite band are San
Francisco mysterions The
Residents, who taught him
"The legend is often better
than reality." Ending the story
where most people might
expect it to begin would be a
very Bunnyman thing to do.

Getty

ewar {allan in Love

Pete Shelley

Ever Fallen In
Love: The Lost
Buzzcocks Tapes
kkk

Pete Shelley with
Louie Shelley

OCTOPUS, £20

Song-by-song insights into
the Buzzcocks’ late '70s
albums, plus much more.

Plans for Buzzcocks frontman
Pete Shelley to publish a
memoir would come to
nothing - until, following the
singer's untimely death in
2018, super-fan Louie (no
relation) began shaping the
numerous taped conversations
she'd had with him into this
fascinating tome. An interview
here with Pete's cousin reveals
the Buzzcock's interest in
cosmology and 'big questions'
dated back to his Lancashire
schooldays. Yet the lasting
impression from Shelley's own
analysis of his songs is not of
the depth of meaning behind
them, but the amount of old-
fashioned craft - and off-beat
humour - that fed into them.
The bleak, existentialist gem
Something's Gone Wrong
Again, for example, began life
as a "jokey" creation, part-
inspired by Northern comedian
Hylda Baker's routine about a
faulty watch and, yes, ‘Cocks’
first frontman Howard Devoto
missing a bus. Ultimately, the
strange genius of Shelley
remains comfortingly
shrouded in mystery.

Pat Gilbert

Shiny And New
ЖЖЖЖ

Dylan Jones
WHITE RABBIT. £20

Essays on 10 singles "of pop
genius that defined the '80s".

СО editor Dylan
Jones has already
3:1 „lı ı explored the
> ІЛІ 1980s in two
previous books
centred on Live
Aid and the new
romantics, but his fascination
forthe era clearly remains
undiminished and here he
further sets out to harness the
musical and cultural ambitions
ofthe decade. Rapper's
Delight and Fight The Power
bookend the tales of Ghost
Town, Blue Monday and
Theme From S'Express, as the
` action generally flits between
London and New York. Jones

manages to inject interesting
analysis into oft familiar stories
- viewing The Smiths circa
Bigmouth Strikes Again as "the
antithesis of the decade, which
meant they became forever
associated with it". Best
though are his auto-
biographical narratives —
experiencing the Brixton riots;
being razored by thugs in
Islington in '81 while dressed
like a cut-price Martin Fry —
and, overall, it's a wholly
successful endeavour carried
along by his waves of
infectious enthusiasm.

Tom Doyle

ዘዘዘዘዘዘዘዘ!!
Permanent
Damage:
Memoirs Of An
Outrageous Girl
ЖЖЖЖ

Mercy Fontenot with
Lyndsey Parker

RARE BIRD. £1

Memoir from Miss Mercy of
Zappa's GTOs, written just
before her death in 2020.

Great writing; wild
stories, but very
dark. None of the
sweetness of fellow
GTO/best friend
Pamela Des Barres'
I'm With The Band.
But Miss Pamela loved sex and
rock'n'roll, while Miss Mercy
loved drugs. Leaving home for
San Francisco in the 605, aged
15, she was on acid when she
overheard Charles Manson talk
about a "race war". She was
with Janis's heroin dealer on
the day that Joplin died. The
(pervy) night she spent with
Chuck Berry, she was so high
she didn't know if they'd had
sex; they did. Moving to Los
Angeles, she encountered
many of the greats of rock,
soul and R&B. She was married
for a while to Shuggie Otis
and they had a son. Her
second husband, a fellow
crackhead, broke every bone
in her face. She details other
beatings from other men and
a slew of rapes. But through
all of it Mercy emerged
undaunted. “We were one
of the first female groups to
break through the barriers,”
she says. “We hung with rock
stars on their turf, and it was
our turf too.”
Sylvie Simmons

ИШШШШШШ
Babble Оп
An' Ting
ЖЖЖЖ

Kris Needs with
Alex Paterson
OMNIBUS. £

Inside-track saga of The Orb,
'90s ambient-house giants.

Needs, later of this parish but
then editing ZigZag, first
encountered Paterson circa
1980 as Killing Joke's drum
roadie, and their paths
frequently intertwined over
the ensuing 40 years, from
squats shared with proto-Orb
sidekick Youth, through a

shared passion for early
electro, to shadowy renown
as punk-inspired dance
mavericks. A distant cousin of
snooker's Ronnie O'Sullivan,
'Dr' Alex had a rough
childhood: after losing his
father aged three, his mum
packed him off to boarding
school where bullying was
institutional. There, he
shielded Youth, two years his
junior, and the duo's anger-
fuelled passage through
Killing Joke (Paterson voiced
Bodies in gig encores), NYC
electro fanaticism and the
incestuous KLF-Orb crowd's
unhinged first steps is
meticulously narrated.
Success with Adventures
Beyond The Ultraworld and
Primal Scream's Higher Than
The Sun, both in 1991, brought
only fleeting joy as dodgy
management and label
pressures snuffed Paterson's
creative juju. His post-
millennial re-emergence feels
like a triumph for a visionary of
warmth and humility.

Andrew Perry

The shiny and
new New Order
embrace the
fascinating '805.

You Are Beautiful
And You Are
Alone

ЖЖЖЖ

Jennifer Otter
Bickerdike

FABER. £20

Vivid reframing of Nico's life
and legacy, from Warhol's
Factory to Prestwich's pubs.

Sometimes
truculent, often
uncompromising,
Nico was not an
easy person to
know, and Jennifer
" Otter Bickerdike
does not shy away from
exploring the difficult sides to
her character in this biography.
But it's also a compassionate
portrayal of a musician whose
artistry has often been
overlooked, a woman who
channelled horrific childhood
experiences of war-blasted
Berlin into a kind of sonic
poetry. Otter Bickerdike
captures her La Dolce Vita
period and the vividness of
the 19605 Factory scene in
New York, interviewing
pivotal figures such as John
Cale and Danny Fields. But
most compelling is the
research into the Manchester
years, where long after Nico
had been abandoned by the
Warhol contingent, she found
acceptance. Here, the dry
Mancunian wit and loyalty

of musicians like Peter Hook,
and James Young, the piano
player in her band from
1981-86, really shines
through brightly.

Lucy O'Brien

FILTER ВОО

The Chameleon
Poet: Bob Dylan's
Search For Self

ЖЖЖЖ
John Bauldie

ROUTE. £20

Late Dean of Dylanology's
unpublished gem of lyrical
crit is off the presses at last.

John Bauldie
edited crucial
Bobzine The
Telegraph, wrote
the Grammy-
nominated
sleevenote to the
first Bootleg Series set and
bossed the subs’ desk at Q
magazine until 1996, the year
he tragically passed in the
helicopter crash that killed
Chelsea FC vice-chairman and
fellow Bobcat Matthew
Harding. Bolton fan Bauldie
was also an English lecturer
and his rigour, lightly worn,
shoots out of every line of this
pithy exploration of Dylan's
pre-conversion songs,
identifying the ways the artist
Robert Zimmerman and the
personas of Bob Dylan diverge
and intersect, while storms
rage (there are lots of storms in
Dylan songs) and spectres of
Rimbaud, Brecht and King Lear
circle. Bauldie's take feels
before-its-time (the
manuscript dates from 1978-
80), breaking down the walls
between phases that even
Dylan fans like to erect, and
tracing Dylan's consistent
posing of a question anyone
can relate to: who the hell am |,
and why am | doing this?
Danny Eccleston

ፈግ

“.

REAL GONE

TUR
17 4

Mr Personality

Lloyd Price, Le
and S j
left us on

OME YEARS before the seismic event
S that was Little Richard's rock'n'roll

eruption with Tutti Frutti, music's
tectonic plates had been shifting down in
New Orleans. There, the heavy swing and
vocal strength of 1952's Lawdy Miss Clawdy
made Lloyd Price's collision of blues and R&B
astrong early rival to Fats Domino.

That US R&B Number 1 was the forerunner

to an extraordinarily varied career, both in
music and outside. Price, who was born in

Kenner, Louisiana in 1933, broadened and
adapted his songwriting throughout the

'50s to embrace the young white audience
attracted to rock'n'roll. After Army service, he
moved from the independent Specialty label
to ABC Paramount, and struck a rich seam of
creativity. His 1957 ballad Just Because and
the following year's definitive arrangement of
Stagger Lee, the traditional tale of murder he
set to driving R&B swing, established him as a
'50s rock star. Stagger Lee was also his biggest
US pop (a Number 1) and UK hit. That he
followed murder with the jauntier jilted rock
of Where Were You (On Our Wedding Day)
was typical of his wit and versatility. 1959's
upbeat Personality earned him the nickname

Lawdy Mr Price: Lloyd,
a rock'n'roll leader.

Mr Personality, but he was never above using
others’ hits to his own ends - 1962's exhorting
Be A Leaderis little more than The Coasters'
Yakety Yak with a new lyric - "just bring home
those As and Bs" a father lectures his children.

Price certainly took his own advice about
leading. As the rock'n'roll market waned, he
had pointed the way for later rock and soul
stars like Sam Cooke and James Brown by
broadening his commercial interests, setting
up several record companies (Double L,
Turntable), running a night club, launching
food brands that fed off his fame (the Lawdy
Miss Clawdy Sweet Potato Cheesecakes) and
diversifying into real estate, while his nose for
adealled him to being closely involved with
boxing promoter Don King in setting up
Muhammad Ali's Rumble In The Jungle
heavyweight title fight. He died in Westches-
ter, New York on May 3.

Geoff Brown

106 MOJO

Al Schmitt

Every time we re-watch Henry
Mancini and Johnny Mercer's
enchanting song Moon River in
thefilm Breakfast At Tiffany's, we
hear Al Schmitt's board mastery
at work. And then there's his
engineering for Sinatra, Dylan,

Paul McCartney, Ray Charles,
Steely Dan, Natalie Cole, Barbra
Streisand and umpteen others –
his range was one of his many
superpowers. He was also a
producer, overseeing the
Jefferson Airplane's acid-dropped
1967 classic After Bathing At
Baxter's. The Brooklyn native was
mentored at his uncle's studio
and later befriended by musician/
recording visionary Les Paul,

eventually winning more
Grammysthan any other engineer
or producer. Raised in the era
before multitracks, Schmitt knew
how to place microphones, which
became a lost art when fixing-it-
in-the-mix arrived. “As much as
soundis important to me as an
engineer," he once noted, "it is
the performance and the feel
that sell the record."

Michael Simmons

Anita Lane

Most likely the ‘Her’ in the title of
Nick Cave's solo album debut From
Her To Eternity, Anita Lane was briefly
a Bad Seed and an occasional
lyricist for both The Birthday Party
and solo Cave. She also recorded
two dramatic and sensual solo
albums, Dirty Pearl (1993) and Sex
O'Clock (2001). "Everyone wanted
to work with her but it was like
trying to trap lightning in a bottle,"
Cave wrote in tribute to his former
paramour and collaborator.

Lane first met Cave through her
former classmate Rowland S.
Howard, guitarist in Melbourne
post-punk maniacs The Boys Next
Door. Whilst still in herteens, Lane
co-authored A Dead Song, Dead
Joe and Kiss Me Black with Cave for
the group, who were renamed The
Birthday Party in 1980. "She wasthe
smartest and most talented of all of
us, by far,” the singer recalled.

When Cave went solo, Lane
contributed keyboards, backing
vocals and occasional lead vocals
to his nascent Bad Seeds. Though
she wasn't an official member after
the pair splitin 1983, she remained
part ofthe inner circle, writing the
lyricsto Stranger Than Kindness
(about Cave, he says) on his fourth
album Your Funeral... My Trial and
adding purring vocals to his ninth
album Murder Ballads.

Lane subsequently carved out
a role asa Jane Birkin-styled foil
for numerous class acts, including

ex-Bad Seed Barry Adamson, Kid
Congo Powers, Einstürzende
Neubauten and, most notably, Bad
Seed Mick Harvey's Gainsbourg
tributes Intoxicated Man and Pink
Elephants. Driven by, in Cave's
words, "a rampant, unstable, fatal
energy that would follow her all her
life", after 2001's barbed pop album
Sex O'Clock Lane devoted herself to
motherhood and a wanderlust that
took her from Berlin to Morocco to
Sicily and back to Australia. “I kind
of wanted to glorify insecurity,”
she once said, “rather than being
confident and successful.”

Martin Aston

Pervis Staples

As the only other
man in The Staples
Singers, Pervis
Staples was often
inthe shadow of
the soul-gospel
group's father/
founder Roebuck
'Pops' Staples. Yet, until he left after
1968's Soul Folk In Action, he was
integral to the powerful, righteous
vocal mix. Born on November 18,
1935 in Drew, Mississippi, he moved
with the family to Chicago where
Popstutored them in gospel
harmony, prioritising the range of
youngest child Mavis, whose husky
depth many later mistook for
Pervis, a fact the Staples played on.
Popular on the gospel circuit, they
signed to Vee-Jay in the '50s,

Anita Lane:
"the smartest
by far".

Franco Battiato:
finding the dawn
within nightfall.

Uncloudy Day earning a first hit.
After other gospel standards, like
Will The Circle Be Unbroken?, Pervis
persuaded his father to broaden
the group’s repertoire with folk
rock covers as they moved to Epic,
Dylan's A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
among them. Even greater success
followed when they signed to Stax,
but Pervis soon left the goup. He
managed another gospel-based
group of sisters, the Hutchinson
Sunbeams, as they became The
Emotions, гап a club, married and
had six children, and was there
when the Staples were inducted
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
in 1999. He died on May 6.

Geoff Brown

Franco Battiato

Though it’s perhaps no surprise
that the first Italian to have a
million-selling album (La Voce Del
Padrone, in 1981) was a prog-rocker,
Franco Battiato was always so
much more, writing soundtracks,
operas, ballets, electronica and
even a Eurovision entry. He looked
as outlandish as Ziggy at the height
of glam, wrote dense, often
unfathomable lyrics that suggest-
ed he devoured the most esoteric
books, and consistently produced
music that was uncompromisingly
Italian, way-out and wildly popular.
By 1988, and the release of
Fisiognomica, arguably his finest
collection, it was the Sicilian, not
Morricone, who Italians called II
Maestro. Catching the mood of all

Italy, in tribute the Vatican's cultural
council (which had been outraged
by the sleeve of his debut LP,
Foetus, in 1971) simply quoted the
man himself: "How hard itis to find
the dawn within nightfall."

David Hutcheon

Roger Hawkins

In the mid-to-late
'60s, when
outstanding soul
records on the
Atlantic and Stax
labels were spilling
; A out of Muscle

/ Shoals’ Fame
Studios on a daily basis, Roger
Hawkins was at their beating heart,
setting a supple rhythm with a
funky backbeat decorated with
simple yet perfect fills. As part of
the Swampers rhythm section,
Hawkins was a key constituent on
classics by Aretha Franklin, Wilson
Pickett, Percy Sledge, Etta James,
Solomon Burke, The Staple Singers
and numerous others. In 1969, the
rhythm section set up their own
studio in Sheffield, Alabama, where
Hawkins went on to drum with
Cher - whose album 3614 Jackson
Highway commemorated the
studio's address – Ry Cooder, Linda
Ronstadt, Bobby Womack, Willie
Nelson and many more. His work
was also embraced by British
singers, playing with Steve
Winwood on Traffic's Shoot Out At
The Fantasy Factory, then touring
with them, drumming on Rod
Stewart's Atlantic Crossing, plus
sessions in other genres.

Hawkins was born in Mishawaka,
Indiana, but eventually settled in
Muscle Shoals after forming that
historic, life-long partnership with
David Hood (bass), Jimmy Johnson
(guitar) and Barry Beckett
(keyboards).

Geoff Brown

MOJO 107

BJ Thomas:
alittle rain
fell into
his life.

BJ Thomas

Born in Hugo, Oklahoma, Billy Joe

Cry. Having gone solo, 1968's
Hooked On A Feeling went Top 5,
then Bacharach & David's Raindrops
Keep Fallin' On My Head, featured
in the 1969 film Butch Cassidy And
The Sundance Kid, gave him the first
oftwo Number 1s. Thomas's soulful

the 70s, though hectic

touring led to a near

fatal alcohol and

drugs dependency.

"Life was a struggle,"

he told me in 2011. "But

music saved me."

Cleaning up, 1977's gospel

album Home Where! Belong

gave him the first of five Grammys.

In 1985 he provided the theme to

US sitcom Growing Pains, and

performed until his death from

complications from lung cancer, his

last charting album being 20135

acoustic The Living Room Sessions.
Lois Wilson

Curtis Fuller

tromboneasa viable
solo instrument in jazz
from the late 1950s.
Best remembered for
his indelible
contribution to
Coltrane's Blue Train
album in 1957, he also
enjoyed a productive spell in
Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in the
first half of the '60s, where he wrote
standout piece Alamode. Born in
Detroit and raised in a Jesuit
orphanage, Fuller's fascination
with jazz began as a teen after
hearing bebop trombonist JJ
Johnson. Though he was a prolific
sideman, playing with everyone
from Wayne Shorter to Count Basie,
he also cut a raft of well-regarded
albums under his own name. А
recipient of an NEA Jazz Master
award in 2007, Fuller released his

final album, In New Orleans, 11
years later at the age of 86.
Charles Waring

Thomas came to prominence with
The Triumphs via 1966's US Top 10
take on I’m So Lonesome | Could

A formidable improviser famed for
his horn’s warm, resonant sound,
Curtis Fuller helped to establish the

pop with a country tinge remained
achart presence in the first part of

THEY ALSO SERVED

PRODUCER, bassist and
guitarist

(b.Nick Page,
1960, below) first came to
prominence as part of techno
fusionists Transglobal
Underground in the early
"906. His other projects
included Temple Of Sound,
the Ethiopian/Jamaican
soundclash Dub Colossus
and further explorations of
the musics of Syria,
Greece and
beyond. Writing
in tribute, Peter
Gabriel spoke
of Page
possessing
“warmth, а
generous
musicality and
areally original
intelligence.”

STAFFORDSHIRE DRUMMER
(b.1947)
played in bands including
The Pinch, Bakerloo Blues
Line and Hiroshima, the
latter with vocalist Rob
Halford. The two later joined
Brum metallers Judas Priest.
Hinch played on the band's
1974 debut Rocka Rolla, but
left the group after that
album's tour, later working in
management with acts
including Fashion, The
Bureau and Uli Jon Roth.

CHARLESTON, South Carolina
voice

(b.1964)
gave a powerful, sensuous
soul performance on
Mantronix’s electro-funk
1989 hit single, Got To Have
Your Love. She was heard
again the following year on
Take Your Time, another UK
Top 10 from the album, This
Should Move Ya. Later credits
included appearances with
Spyro Суга, Baltimore's DJ

Getty (2), Alamy, York

a Cowan,

Liz

Spen and gospel house
outfit Jasper Street Co.

BASSIST and vocalist
(b.1941) joined New
Jersey pop institutions The 4
Seasons in 1965, in time for
their cover of Dylan's Don't
ThinkTwice, released under
the pseudonym The
Wonder Who? to hit
Number 12. Nine more Top 30
singles, including 1975's
US Number 3 Who
Loves You,
followed, before
he left. He later
played rock
and jazz with
LaBracio and
Jersey
Воипсе Іп
2018, he was
inducted into the
Rockand Roll Hall of Fame.

MODEL and singer

(b.1962) famously
stripped offto Marvin Gaye's
| Heard It Through Тһе
Grapevine, ona 1985 Levi's TV
advert set in a launderette.
This brought the Harlow-
born former bass playerto
theattention of Madonna,
who gave him the 1986 UK
Number 5 hit Each Time You
Break My Heart. She also
co-produced Kamen's
self-titled debut album in
1987. After three more LPs,
Kamen gave up musicto work
as an abstract painter and
video-maker.

FOLK SINGER, songwriter and
lesbian activist

(b.1940, below)
started out on the 605 New
York folk scene, rubbing
shoulders with
Bob Dylan.
Dobkin's 1973
debut album,
Lavender Jane
Loves Women

108 MOJO

was one of the first ‘out’
lesbian releases. Forging an
independentalternative to
the male-dominated music
industry, releases on Dobkin's
Women's Wax Works label
included the compilation,
Love & Politics, A 30 Year Saga.
She was also known for her
The Future Is Female T-shirt,
later an internationally
recognised slogan of the
women's movement.

RECORD SHOP and label
owner

(b.1932) founded what would
become the Delmark imprint
in St Louis in 1953. Moving to
Chicago in 1958, the proudly
independent label released
veteran blues men, jazzers
and new talent with equal
care and attention, the
catalogue ranging from
Sleepy John Estes and
Buddy Guy to SunRaand
Anthony Braxton, among
many others. In 1959 Koester
opened his Jazz Record Mart,
whose descendant outlet
Bob's Blues & Jazz Mart
continues to operate, though
hesold Delmark in 2018. In
1996 Koester, also a keen
vintage film collector,
became one of the few
non-musicians to be inducted
into the Blues Hall of Fame

ALL-NIGHT RADIO LEGEND
(b.1933) told his
1960s audience: ገ wanna bea
neuron - | don't wanna be the
brain. We're all the brain."
Beginning in 1963, Fass
hosted Radio Unnameable on
non-commercial WBAI in
New York for over a
half-century. The
show functioned
as an incubator
for what's now
called the
countercul-

ture: 605 regulars included
Bob Dylan and Abbie
Hoffman. He also debuted
Jerry Jeff Walker's single Mr
Bojangles and Arlo Guthrie's
Alice's Restaurant live on air.

ENGINEER, producer and
armonica player

(b.1947) was born
in Gatineau, Quebec. He and
his brother Daniel originally
set up MSR Productions from
their mother's house, and he
ater opened his own studio,
Bob's Shack, in Waterdown,
Ontario. Along with his
numerous technical credits,
Lanois was an experienced
photographer who shot
cover images for Emmylou
Harris's Wrecking Ball album,
while his 2006 solo
ong-player Snake Road was
nominated for
a Juno award.

SINGER

(b.1954, below) was the Тегі!
voice of Milli Vanilli. From
Anderson, South Carolina,
Davis inadvertently becamea
starin 1989 when the French/
German dance duo won

the Grammy for Best

New Artist for

their single Girl

You Know It's

True. When

frontmen

Fabrice

Morvan and

RobPilatus

admitted that

they'd been

lip-syncing to other singers’
voices, including Davis, they
were stripped of their award.
In '91, Davis sang on The Real
Milli Vanilli’s The Moment Of
Truth with other singers
who'd sung the duo's hits,
and later formed a duo

with Morvan.

NEW ORLEANS SAXOPHONIST

(b.1943) joined Louisiana
swampers John Fred And
His Playboy Band in 1965.
With bandleader John Fred
Gourrier, Bernard co-wrote
the simple but catchy
January 68 US Number 1 and
global bubblegum smash
Judy In Disguise (With
Glasses). He left after 19685
Permanently Stated LP,
worked in the oil industry and
reunited with Gourrier for the
singer's last LP Somebody's
Knockin’ in 2002.

PRODUCER and songwriter

(b.1925) survived the Nazi
invasion of Belgium. When
peace came he worked in
BBC children's programmes
including Pinky and Perky.
Later, while also serving as
European manager at Decca,
he produced recordings for
Edmundo Ros, The Goons,
andPatrick Macnee and
Honor Blackman, whose
1964 song Kinky Boots was а
itin 1990. Asa writerand
translator of continental
material, Stellman's
credits included
songs for
Charles
Aznavour,
Engelbert
Humper-
dinckand
Max
Bygraves,
whose Tulips From
Amsterdam was a
monster success in 1958.
Stellman also imported
Channel 4's quiz show
Countdown from French TV,
and co-produced three 1978
UK hits for Belgian cartoon
phenomenon The Smurfs.
Jenny Bulley, Michael Simmons
andlan Harrison

NV wv

ፆ MOJO
RECORD STORE

4
4 DIRECTORY
ПТ) Vinyl Eddie

T ILO ту An Aladdin's Cave of rarities,

collectables and new vinyl awaits.
podcast 86 Tadcaster Road, York, YO24 1LR

IE 3E APE Гу

TV news and reviews every Monday www.vinyleddie.co.uk 07975 899839
# Available on Fish Records
“ iTunes New vinyl and CDs plus pre-loved vinyl.

Wide selection with particular specialism in roots

and Americana music.
Unit 2, Crown Courtyard, Crown Street, Stone,
Staffordshire, ST15 8UY
www.fishrecords.co.uk 01785 818847
@pilottvmag
N Sr The Vinyl Whistle
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А classic indie record shop, with four
rooms of vinyl in the heart of Headingley

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serving coffee, beer and live music.

12 Otley Road, Headingley, Leeds 156 2AD
www.vinylwhistle.co.uk 0113 4260588

[Europa Music

Ер Welcome to the ONLY Independent
vinyl/record and CD shop in Stirling and the largest
browsable vinyl record shop in Scotland.

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O The Sound Machine

Reading's longest established
independent collectors record shop.
24 Harris Arcade, Reading, RG1 1DN
www.thesoundmachine.uk.com 0118 957 5075

WHOSWAX
ND.

To Advertise in

MOJO

Classified
Please call Max Garwood on

01733 366409

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@ Five Rise Records

We are a physical and online
record store, run by music lovers

for music lovers.

30C Park Road, Bingley, West Yorkshire, BD16 4JQ
www.fiveriserecords.co.uk 01274 512867

TO ADVERTISE PLEASE CALL MAX ON 01733 366405

... Stooges and

MC5

protest pot bust!

“PIGS SCALP SINCLAIR’, reported
JULY 26 the Detroit anarchist periodical
Fifth Estate. John Sinclair, poet, manager of
the MC5 and co-founder of the White Panther
Party, had been in a world of pain since
Christmas 1966. Accused of selling two joints
to an undercover cop, he got his enforced
haircut at Oakland County jail in Michigan.
"They grabbed me and held me while some
ponk [sic] with a pair of scissors cut my hair,”
said Sinclair ofthe July 10 shearing. "This is
whatthe pigs are all about. They want
everyone to look and be just like them...
they'll pay for this one way or another."

Luckily, Sinclair had some friends in the
Detroit area he could count on. Proto-punk
culture-arsonists The Stooges and the MC5
not only had his back, but were threatening
something more terrifying still to the forces
of reaction: both had deals with major label
Elektra and were threatening to take their
rock'n'roll insurrection to the US mainstream.

The groups had been signed by PR Danny
Fields to Elektra after a September 1968 show
atthe University of Michigan (the MC5 got
$15,000, with $5,000 for The Stooges, who
then moved into chaotic communal

110 MOJO

headquarters the Fun House). The MC5's
explosive live debut Kick Out The Jams had
peaked in the US at Number 30 in May. In July,
they were telling Jazz & Pop magazine how
Sinclair hepped them to "the whole concept
of energy". Said guitarist Wayne Kramer, sat in
Fields' New York apartment, "if you take
everything in the universe, take everything
thatthe mind can conceive of, anything,
everything, and break it down, you can only
go as far as energy... energy is freedom."

The MC5's “little brother” band The
Stooges, who were arguably the more
enticing prospect, had no shortage of
energy-as-freedom. A dysfunctional group

Real Cool Time (clockwise from
main): in matching strides, Stooges
Iggy (right) and Ron Asheton at
Detroit’s Grande Ballroom; MC5
and Stooges wax; the MC5 sweat
(including, from right, Wayne
Kramer and Rob Tyner); John
Sinclair prepares to spark up.

of friends, so messed up that ever-wired
frontman James ‘Iggy’ Osterberg was the
adult in the room, their combustible mix
included the Velvets, the blues and Hendrix,
mixed with the out-of-control audience
provocation of Jim Morrison. As The
Psychedelic Stooges they'd already shared
stages with Sly Stone, Cream and the Mothers
at Detroit's Grande Ballroom, gaining excited
infamy for Iggy's trouser-bursting, food-
slathering, stage-diving live antics.

The earliest known footage of the band,
filmed by Leni Sinclair, dates from a July 20
performance at the Delta Pops Festival at
Michigan University Centre. The symbols are
loaded: as well as a Stars And Stripes апа а
White Panther flag, guitarist Ron Asheton
sports a Nazi armband. Iggy can be seen
dropping to the floor and invading the sitting
crowd, flinging a hapless girl over his
shoulder (this was apparently the college
dean's daughter). "People were fascinated,"
said Ron Asheton of the primal Stooges
experience, in 1988. "It was sort of like driving
by an accident, and there's a car wreck... you
wanna see if there's some blood, or if you can
[see], ‘Oh, that guy is really fucked up...”

This month they had their self-titled, John
Cale-produced debut album ready to go,
heralded by debut 45 | Wanna Be Your Dog.
There were high hopes for this smart/dumb
nihilist power surge. Billboard expected
similar sales as The Doors, and gushed about,
"a rough and raw Rolling Stones-type

7), Advertising Archives

E^
Ё
©

sound... sophisticated pop execution... will
boost The Stooges to the top." Though Iggy
was sore that they renamed him ‘Iggy
Stooge’ on the record cover without telling
him, he said in 2016 book Total Chaos: "I
thought that the label had class. | wanted to
be with a class label, and I think long term,
that was a really good thing.”

Yet in the short term, not so much. As if
in imitation of the album photoshoot, when
a stoned Iggy tried to liven up Joel Brodsky's
session by diving chin-first onto the
concrete studio floor, The Stooges was nota
success, entering the charts at Number 131,
finally reaching Number 106 in October.

John Sinclair's news had been bad too.
Despite The Stooges and the MC5 playing
a Legal Self Defence benefit for him at the
Grande Ballroom on July 23, on July 28 he
was sentenced to nine-and-a-half to 10
years in prison. He would eventually serve
justtwo, after a legal battle and the
high-profile support of pals including John
Lennon, Jane Fonda and Stevie Wonder.
Sadly, both The Stooges and the MCS failed
to breakthrough and would split in the next
few years, though their inspirational legacy
to rockers bent on going further continues
to reverberate.

A final twist came on the morning of
November 28, 2019, when Sinclair scored his
first legal weed from Arbors Wellness. The
Ann Arbor dispensary was located less than
three miles from where both the Fun House
and the MC5's headquarters stood. It was a
factthat could not have been lost on him, as
he exhaled heavy Gorilla Glue No. 4 smoke
into the Michigan air.

lan Harrison

SCOTT'S MOR PEAK

Scott Walker peaks at Number
JULY 13 13 with his mellow 45 Lights Of
Cincinnati; on the 12th, his MOR covers
collection Sings Songs From His TV Series
peaked at 7. He's had a good year - in March
he hosted the above-named BBCTV show,
while in April his Scott 3 album reached
Number 3. But amid other troublesome

In the Milky Way:
Syd Barrett,
| moony rocker.

Floyd's first
lunar trip

To mark Apollo 11 astro-
JULY 20 nauts Neil Armstrong and
Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon, at 10pm
ВВС15 Omnibus arts show broadcasts live
special What If It's Just Green Cheese? Pink
Floyd play a live improvisation to
accompany the moon landing, "a nice,
atmospheric, spacey, 12-bar blues" (said
Dave Gilmour) later named Moonhead.
Judi Dench, Roy Dotrice, lan McKellen,
Michael Gough and Michael Hordern read
lunar poetry, with more music from the
Dudley Moore Trio and Marion Montgom-
ery. Six days later Gilmour and bandmate
Roger Waters are at Abbey Road co-
producing Syd Barrett's solo debut The
Madcap Laughs. The July 26 session – the
album's last – yields Feel, Long Gone and
aptly for the planetary times, Wouldn't
You Miss Me (Dark Globe).

Engels and devils:
Scott entertains
the mums and
dads, onelast time.

events - this summer he's up before the US
draft board (he's declared unfit to serve in
Vietnam), and he also sacks his manager,
Maurice King – his balancing of commerciality
and art will not last. Released in December,
the all-original Scott 4, credited to Scott Engel,
fails to chart, and his pop fame is over. "You
can't please everybody,” he reflects later.

John Lennon crashes his

Austin Maxi into a ditch
while on holiday in the
Scottish Highlands with Yoko
Ono and their respective kids
(all above). Stitches are
required. On July 9 he rejoins
the rest of The Beatles in
London to resume recording
Abbey Road.

Brian Jones, who was

dismissed from The
Rolling Stones in June, is
found dead at his farmhouse
in East Sussex. Two days later
the Stones dedicate their free
concert at Hyde Park to him:
Pete Townshend and Jim
Morrison both publish
poems in Jones's memory.

Il David Bowie's Space
Oddity is released in time
for the moon landings. It will
become a UK Number 5 hit in
November, taking until April
773 to reach US Number 15.

25 Can play an epic gig at
Schloss Norvenich near
Cologne. Their performance
of Yoo Doo Right is released
in a month as side two of
their debut LP Monster Movie.

3l Opening with Blue Suede
Shoes, Elvis Presley
makes his live comeback to
an invitation-only
2,000-strong crowd at the
International Hotel
showroom in Las Vegas. It’s
his first public performance
since 1962, and he'll play
more than 600 Vegas dates
before he's through.

TOP TEN

SWISS
SINGLES

OH HAPPY

DAY THE EDWIN
HAWKINS SINGERS
BUDDAH

MENDOCINO
Ж. SIR DOUGLAS
QUINTET MERCURY

THE BALLAD

OF JOHN AND
YOKO THE
BEATLES APPLE

AQUARIUS/
LET THE
SUNSHINE IN

(THE FLESH
FAILURES) THE
5TH DIMENSION
LIBERTY

HONKY TONK

WOMEN THE
ROLLING STONES
DECCA

TOMORROW

TOMORROW
THE BEE GEES
POLYDOR

GIVE PEACE

A CHANCE
PLASTIC ONO
BAND APPLE

ISRAELITES

DESMOND
DEKKER & THE
ACES EMBER

I WANT

TO LIVE
APHRODITE'S
CHILD MERCURY

DIZZY
TOMMY ROE
STATESIDE

Hair, apparently:
at Number 4, The
5th Dimension

BLACK
AND WHITE

1> DEAD

Pye Colour lives

Grainy B&W telly is declared over by those
heralds of the new dawn, Pye. Cost: £346,

which is nearly FIVE GRAND in today’s pounds.

MOJO 111

Enjoyed the Ram feature in MOJO 331, but
something that's always puzzled me is why the
1971 single The Back Seat Of My Car was a flop in
the UK. Justa year after The Beatles split you
would have thought one of them playing a
trombone underwater with boxing gloves on
would have been a hit, so what went wrong?
| would imagine there have been a few other
singles down the years that have looked like
sure-fire hits but died a death. Does
anyone know of any and why?
Frank Henry, via e-mail

І s: In the same week

that George Harrison's Bangla

Desh was at Number 12, Paul

and Linda McCartney's The

Back Seat Of My Car should

have done better than Number

39. Wasitalittle meandering,

too long after the album, with

no new B-side? Which never
stopped Michael Jackson rinsing
Thrillerfor hits, of course. The fact is,
eventhe mighty aren't immuneto the
occasional pass from the public - why did
the Stones’ Waiting On A Friend only make it to

UK Number 50, for example, and why did none of
the singles off Fleetwood Mac's Rumours make the
UK Top 20? It's always a gamble - imagine the A&R
department headscratching when sure-fire
smashes like The Only Ones' Another Girl, Another
Planetor Big Star's September Gurls tanked,
though in low-charting situations like AC/DC's
Highway To Hell or The Beach Boys' Fun, Fun, Fun,
time has ultimately vindicated them. In terms of
songs eluding deserved success on release,
though, there must be a special place for Leonard
Cohen's Hallelujah. Released as a single in 1984, it
was completely ignored in the US and Britain,
though oddly, it did get to Number 1 in France.

112 MOJO

What were the
super flop 45s?

BURGER SOUNDS

Iwas tickled to read about the
Warp records/Stannah Stairlifts
connection in MOJO 330. I’ve
read that McDonald's burger magnate Ray Kroc
started outas a musician. Did he record at all?
Dennis Shaw, via e-mail

Kroc talked about his piano-playing
pastin his candid 1977 memoir Grinding It Out. Asa
young "sheikh" in the '20s he provided musical
accompaniment іп a brothel in Calumet City, Illinois
(singer Herbie Mintz got him the job), while at
Chicago's WGES radio he recalled working with

armless lyricist Tommie Malie, whose
co-writes included Looking At The
World Through Rose-Coloured
Glasses, later recorded by Frank
Sinatra. In Florida, Kroc later
played with the Willard Robison
Orchestra, whose leader's
credits included A Cottage For
Sale (as sung by Sinatra, Chuck
Berry and James Brown, the
latter getting funky in a
McDonald's ad in 1984) and jazz
standard Old Folks. Alas, Kroc
gave up music for fast food before
he could record, but Mark Knopfler cut
asombre musical portrait of the burger
titan with his 2004 single Boom, Like That.

WHO ARE THE REAL
TROUPERS?

Steve Holland, the last original member of Molly
Hatchet, died on August 2, 2020. Despite there
being no original members left, Molly Hatchet
continues to perform live as of 2021. Is this the
first active band of which all original band
members have passed away?

Jurgen Verhoeven, Belgium

1 5: There are groups who have all passed
on- - Ramones and The Heartbreakers, we salute
you - butasforthem still being active, the
orchestras of Duke Ellington and Count Basie, who

Thwarts'n'all: (clockwise
from above) AC/DC's
Angus Young waits for
Highway To Hell to be
ahit; The Kinks' 1986
long-player; tape-head
Nick Laird-Clowes; James
Brown, separated by five
degrees from burger
tycoon Ray Kroc.

debuted on wax in 1926
and 1937 respectively, are
still playing, as are versions
of The Platters and The Drifters, despite all original
members having left this mortal coil. Other
candidates include The Kingston Trio and The
Wurzels – any other suggestions?

MORE BOOTLEG BLUES

Apropos the search for super bad recordings (Ask
MOJO 332). I was once gifted a cassette recording
of a Wings concert (by my then-schoolmate Nick
Laird-Clowes, laterto find fame with Dream
Academy). As the band goes into Hi, Hi, Hi, on the
tape сап clearly be heard, "Get off my fucking
foot!", presumably from a less than impressed
fellow audience member! The tribulations of a
cassette recorder in your pocket and a micro-
phone down your sleeve...

Nick Paterson-Morgan, via e-mail

Marvellous stuff. For another no-fi
treat, thanks also to Steven McGill for suggesting
the live 1987 La's show released on the Callin’ All
CD: “Even now you will shout at the crowd to shut
up," he says.

When | got The Kinks’ Think Visual in 1986, The
Video Shop was contemporary commentary. Now
it seems very nostalgic. Does anyone have any
other good examples of similar songs, preferably
including references to decimal coinage or the
bad influence oftoo much TV?

David Lloyd, via e-mail

ys: Overto you, but we'll start the betting
with Pulp's Disco 2000.

CONTACTMOJO

Have you gota challenging musical question for the MOJO
Brains Trust? E-mail askmojo@bauermedia.co.uk and
we'll help untangle your trickiest puzzles.

Getty (3)

Courtesy Fred Dellar Estate

FAREWELL,

1931-2021

; BELOVED

LEGEND OF THE MUSIC PRESS

page. Until recently, he would also be hosting

the Time Machine and Ask Fred sections, as
well as sharing his expertise and taste as a reviewer.
Each contribution was essential, as a lifetime of
curation, data-gathering and enthusiasm came
together in words guaranteed to inform and
entertain. Sadly, Fred left us on May 15, just two
weeks shy of his 90th birthday.

Born on May 29, 1931 in Willesden, north-west
London, he recalled of his youth, “I spent all of my
pre-teen years in a fish and chip shop - right up to
the moment when a German bomb blew the roof
off our Earlsfield establishment." Called up to do his
national service in 1950, he was posted to Bomber
Command Headquarters at RAF High Wycombe,
where he started a jazz club and booked bands
including the 20-piece Toni Anton's Progressive
Orchestra. “I never saw the inside of an aircraft
during the whole two years," Fred quipped,
“though | learnt to type properly."

The skill would come in handy. A youth club DJ
and lecturer, part-time "street skiffler" and habitué
of nightspots including Willesden's Club Satchmo,
run by compere and promoter Bix Curtis ("he
taught me so much about jazz," Fred said), his love
of music found an outlet in writing. As well as
producing jazz fanzines, he had his first words
published in Record Mirror in 1955. As Secretary of
the Frank Sinatra Appreciation Society, he was one
ofthe few invited guests present at the Chairman's
only British recording sessions, at Bayswater's CTS
studios in June 1962. As the '60s gathered pace, he
began contributing to Hi-Fi News and writing
sleevenotes, the first being Jambo Caribe by Dizzy
Gillespie in 1965. He also retained his invitation to a
Sinatra reception, as if anticipating the future
world's appetite for documentary evidence of this
golden time. He kept his back issues and updated
his files, already accumulating the facts and
analysis he would be celebrated for.

After being made redundant from his
warehouse job in 1972, Fred applied to work at the
NME, where he would remain until the mid-'90s.
Immune from the year zero antagonism of punk

Р RED DELLAR'S crossword should be on this

This 18 to confirm that the М.М.Е. FAED РАСТ feature
Factory Communications Ltd. page has been allocated the
following official Factory Catalogue number:

РАС 227

Signed on behalf of Factory!

/ ^

/ ; | لم‎
“ا‎ v fh.

A. It. MLiIaon
Chairman
Factory Coasuntcations Ltd.

- Tony Parsons and Julie Burchill famously bought
him cakes - his roles included serving as deputy
news editor, reviewing imports and demos, and
interviewing artists including Tom Waits, Mama
Cass, Stevie Wonder, Tangerine Dream and Daevid
Allen. It was at NME that he hosted his Fred Fact
column, an always genial outpost where readers
could request discographies, have questions
answered and pursue the kind of secret knowledge
the pre-internet age did not give up easily. A 1989
three-part Fred Fact report on the Factory label was
famously given its own Factory catalogue number
- FAC227 - by Tony Wilson. He wrote books about
Sinatra, country music and, the one he said he was
most proud of, 1981's The NME Guide To Rock
Cinema. He also contributed to Smash Hits, The
Wire, Vox, The Face and, later, Loaded.

bringing his crisp prose and broad knowledge,

he felt like ап envoy from a legendary time in the
music industry, having survived innumerable shifts
in fashion and years of change in media and
technology. But Fred wore it lightly, always. Smartly
dressed, modest and self-deprecating, he was
happiest sharing some fact or story about one of

| М 1996, Fred found a home at MOJO. As well as

The only definitive quide.

his many interests (which could be Peggy Lee or
Mark Murphy, Frankie Lymon or the history of the
Grand Ole Opry, the music of the Harlem
Globetrotters or the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943), and
recalling London's bygone music scene and its
characters. Friends including Roy Carr and Stan
Britt, and the clubs, label offices and studios may
have gone from the world, but they existed, still,
in his memories.

It was frequently said in the MOJO office that he
should get an OBE or something similar, but this
was never his style. Instead, he lived a music life,
never lost the thrill of his chosen subject, and
worked hard sharing that thrill as long as he could.

Having sadly lost his wife Pam last year, Fred
scaled back his writing. At home in Northampton,
he wrote “best to just sit back, enjoy life and watch
those late-night movies.” His final published
crossword appeared in last month’s issue. Fred
once described MOJO as “a magazine | love”, and
the feeling was entirely mutual. We will miss this
unique, universally liked and genuinely nice man
more than words can say.

THE MOJO CROSSWORD WILL RETURN NEXT MONTH

` The Guv’nor (anticlockwise
j "from main): Fred Dellar in /
/ recent years;smartlad hits

the jazz clubs; receiving |
the FAC number in 1989; on
left, with friend Stan Britt
(centre), in the '705; skiffling
withhisbanjo;aFred |
favourite; asa child.

16 госК, pop,

soul and disco music in the movies

Fred Dellar

Paul Slattery, AJ Barratt

GOODBYE

HELLO SUMMER 1982

| joined Prefab Sprout when I was 16.1 was
living in a semi-derelict cottage in Durham
with my best friend who introduced me to
Paddy and Martin McAloon at their dad's
petrol station in Witton Gilbert. They had
started Prefab Sprout with drummer Michael
Salmon who lived nearby. They turned one of
the garage buildings into a rehearsal studio
for the band. I went to see them perform at
the Brewers Arms in Gilesgate. Their hand-
drawn posters used the strap line ‘Simply Ears
Ahead’. They were exquisite musicians, quirky
performers who sometimes wore wellies.
There was a Melos tape echo chamber that
regularly went wrong. The music was
complex, with radical chord changes and
styles, literary lyrics, deft melodic bass lines
and drums that skipped. At first, | didn't
understand their music, couldn't hear it or
fully take itin. Then the song
Walk On, or Goodbye Lucille
#7, found a way in, opened
my earsto the rest.

I'd actually been
visualising myself being in
the band. | told them | could
sing. Paddy invited me to
sing ona demo of a song
called Cherry Tree. We
recorded the track at
Durham University
recording studio in front
of Durham Cathedral,
recording overnight
because it was cheaper. |
remember being nervous
and sitting down to sing.

Our voices blended well,

114 MOJO

prout

created an atmosphere and | could handle the
complex harmonies Paddy wanted to create.
Later, Paddy and Mart came round and said,
“Will you be in the band?" | joined the band.

It was like walking into the most amazing
artistic world. We recorded [1984 debut]
Swoon, uncommon songs written out of
necessity. Michael Salmon left, [drummer]
Neil Conti joined and [producer] Thomas
Dolby became the fifth Sprout. We signed an
eight-album deal with CBS through legendary
A&R Muff Winwood. We joined a whole roster
of labelmates, Alison Moyet, George Michael,
Pierre Boulez, Olivier Messiaen, Maurice
Ravel. We made [1985 LP] Steve McQueen.

I remember trips to Los Angeles, making From
Langley Park To Memphis (1988), mixing Jordan:
The Comeback (1990). Ahead were months in
the studio, living in an unfamiliar place, too
far from home. The Hollywood hills, a house
with a David Hockney pool, another that once
belonged to Rudolph Valentino, a stay in the
Hollywood Roosevelt, the Sunset Marquis.

Touring was not our forte.
Though I’m sure we were a
great live band. We were
never rock'n'roll, more Earl
Grey than Jack Daniel's. The
CEO of CBS senta memo
saying | looked like The
Singing Nun and something
had to be done. І bought a
minuscule velvet skirt, a Rifat
Ozbek sequin cat-suit, a
skin-tight Pam Hogg dress.
In the gaps between albums
Ithought about women's
voices, everyone's right to
be creative, the importance
of musicin people's lives.

We went through a
period wherelleft Prefab

The best jewel thieves
in the world: early days
Prefab Sprout (from left)
Paddy McAloon, Michael
қ Salmon, Wendy Smith
З апа Martin McAloon.

Sprout, had intolerable grief, re-joined and
left again. When you've been working so
closely with people in such a committed way,
moving out of itis not simple. The lastthing
might have been the video for A Prisoner Of
The Past [April 1997]. Paddy and Mart did go
ona tour [in 2000] when | was effectively on
maternity leave, but | was really still around
until about 2001. | knew | had to move into a
different thing, and | was incredibly lucky that
as | was thinking about it, the Sage Gateshead
was being built [Smith is Director of Contem-
porary Music at the northeast culture nexus].

At the beginning of the pandemic my
friend Tim Burgess asked me to host a Twitter
Listening Party for Steve McQueen. Since then,
Tim has created a musical movement,
bringing people together when we needed
it most. Recently the band LYR [formed by
author/Poet Laureate Simon Armitage]
borrowed a line from the Sprout song Desire
As for their beautiful song Winter Solstice. |
was honoured to be invited to record the line
for their track. That's where l'm still part of it.
It's still a living thing, it hasn't ended.

My relationships with Paddy and Martin
are still extremely valuable to me. They're key
to my life. Could we do it again? We've sung
together when we've visited each other, but
we're unlikely to, in terms of public singing.
That's a gut instinct, not a fact. There's so
much unreleased material (of Paddy's), and I'd
love to see them live. | can't tell you how he
does what he does. He's a magician. It's magic.

Additional interview by lan Harrison

Winter Solstice by LYR featuring Wendy Smith is
outnow.

In the magic years, with
drummer Neil Conti (right);
(left) Wendy today.

ቋ

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